Caste and Punishment: The Legacy of Caste Culture in Norm Enforcement
研究印度种姓制度如何影响个体惩罚违反合作规范的行为，发现低种姓个体更不愿惩罚伤害本种姓成员的违规行为，这可能削弱其集体行动能力并加剧经济脆弱性。
Well-functioning groups enforce social norms that restrain opportunism, but the social structure of a society may encourage or inhibit norm enforcement. Here we study how the exogenous assignment to different positions in an extreme social hierarchy – the caste system – affectsnindividuals’ willingness to punish violations of a cooperation norm. Although we control for individual wealth, education, and political participation, low caste individuals exhibit a muchnlower willingness to punish norm violations that hurt members of their own caste, suggesting a cultural difference across caste status in the concern for members of one’s own community. Thenlower willingness to punish may inhibit the low caste’s ability to sustain collective action and so may contribute to its economic vulnerability .