The impact of personal responsibility on the (un)willingness to punish non-cooperation and reward cooperation

To promote cooperation, people often rely on the administration of sanctions. However, from previous research we know that those in control of sanctions are generally reluctant to punish non-cooperative choice behavior and prefer to reward cooperative choice behavior, which is consistent with the do-no-harm principle. We propose that people are reluctant to punish because they feel personally responsible for the harm done. As such, we argue and...