A hallmark of human societies is the scale at which we cooperate with many others, even when they are not closely genetically related to us. One proposed mechanism that helps explain why we cooperate is punishment; cooperation may pay and proliferate if those who free ride on the cooperation of others are punished. Yet this ‘solution’ raises another puzzle of its own: Who will bear the costs of punishing? While the deterrence of free‐riders via punishment serves collective interests, presumably any single individual—who has no direct incentive to punish—is better off letting others pay the costs of punishment. However, emerging theory and evidence indicate that, while punishment may at times be a costly act, certain individuals are better able to ‘afford’ to pay the price of punishment and are often consequentially rewarded with fitness‐enhancing reputation benefits. Synthesizing across these latest lines of research, we propose a novel framework that considers how high status individuals—that is, individuals with greater prestige or dominance—enjoy lower punishment costs. These individuals are thus more willing to punish, and through their punitive action can in turn reap reputational rewards by further gaining more prestige or dominance. These reputational gains, which work in concert to promote the social success of punishers, recoup the costs of punishing. Together, these lines of work suggest that while punishment is often assumed to be altruistic, it need not always depend on altruism, and motivations to punish may at times be self‐interested and driven (whether consciously or unconsciously) by reputational benefits.

中文翻译：

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负责并介入：惩罚个人将获得威望和支配地位

人类社会的一个标志就是我们与许多其他人合作的规模，即使它们与我们之间在遗传上不密切。提出的有助于解释为什么我们合作的机制是惩罚。如果搭便车者与他人合作，则合作可能会付出代价并激增。然而，这种“解决方案”又引起了另一个困惑：谁来承担惩罚的代价？尽管通过惩罚威慑自由搭便车为集体利益服务，但大概没有任何直接动机去惩罚的任何个人最好让别人来支付惩罚费用。但是，新兴的理论和证据表明，尽管惩罚有时可能是代价高昂的行为，某些人更有能力“负担”得起惩罚的代价，因此常常会得到健身方面的声誉声誉奖励。综合这些最新研究成果，我们提出了一个新颖的框架，该框架考虑了地位较高的个人（即具有较高声望或主导地位的个人）如何享受较低的惩罚成本。因此，这些人更愿意惩罚，并且通过其惩罚性行动可以通过进一步获得更多声望或统治力而获得声誉奖励。这些声誉的提高，共同促进了惩罚者的社会成功，弥补了惩罚的代价。总之，这些工作方式表明，尽管通常认为惩罚是无私的，但不一定总是依靠无私，