{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,31]],"date-time":"2026-03-31T08:58:57Z","timestamp":1774947537649,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":21,"publisher":"Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences","issue":"19","content-domain":{"domain":["www.pnas.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A."],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2005,5,10]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>How did human cooperation evolve? Recent evidence shows that many people are willing to engage in altruistic punishment, voluntarily paying a cost to punish noncooperators. Although this behavior helps to explain how cooperation can persist, it creates an important puzzle. If altruistic punishment provides benefits to nonpunishers and is costly to punishers, then how could it evolve? Drawing on recent insights from voluntary public goods games, I present a simple evolutionary model in which altruistic punishers can enter and will always come to dominate a population of contributors, defectors, and nonparticipants. The model suggests that the cycle of strategies in voluntary public goods games does not persist in the presence of punishment strategies. It also suggests that punishment can only enforce payoff-improving strategies, contrary to a widely cited \u201cfolk theorem\u201d result that suggests that punishment can allow the evolution of any strategy.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1073\/pnas.0500938102","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2005,4,28]],"date-time":"2005-04-28T00:34:07Z","timestamp":1114648447000},"page":"7047-7049","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1073\/pnas.cm10313","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":380,"title":["Altruistic punishment and the origin of cooperation"],"prefix":"10.1073","volume":"102","author":[{"given":"James H.","family":"Fowler","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Political Science, University of California, 1 Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616"}]}],"member":"341","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2005,4,27]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_3_2_1_2","unstructured":"Sober E. & Wilson D. S. (1998) Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior (Harvard Univ. Press Cambridge MA)."},{"key":"e_1_3_2_2_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/0022-5193(64)90038-4"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_3_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1126\/science.7466396"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_4_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1038\/31225"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_5_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1038\/415137a"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_6_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1257\/aer.90.4.980"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_7_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1086\/204166"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_8_2","unstructured":"Henrich J. P. (2004) Foundations of Human Sociality: Economic Experiments and Ethnographic Evidence From Fifteen Small-Scale Societies (Oxford Univ. Press Oxford)."},{"key":"e_1_3_2_9_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/S1090-5138(04)00005-4"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_10_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1126\/science.1100735"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_11_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.tpb.2003.07.001"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_12_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1073\/pnas.0630443100"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_13_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/0162-3095(92)90032-Y"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_14_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1006\/jtbi.2000.2111"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_15_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1006\/jtbi.2003.3104"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_16_2","unstructured":"Weibull J. W. (1995) Evolutionary Game Theory (MIT Press Cambridge MA)."},{"key":"e_1_3_2_17_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1126\/science.1070582"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_18_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1038\/nature01986"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_19_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1006\/jtbi.2002.3067"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_20_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/S0022-5193(03)00154-1"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_21_2","unstructured":"Sugden R. (1986) The Economics of Rights Cooperation and Welfare (Blackwell Oxford)."}],"container-title":["Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/pnas.org\/doi\/pdf\/10.1073\/pnas.0500938102","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2022,4,12]],"date-time":"2022-04-12T17:29:00Z","timestamp":1649784540000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/pnas.org\/doi\/full\/10.1073\/pnas.0500938102"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2005,4,27]]},"references-count":21,"journal-issue":{"issue":"19","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2005,5,10]]}},"alternative-id":["10.1073\/pnas.0500938102"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1073\/pnas.0500938102","relation":{},"ISSN":["0027-8424","1091-6490"],"issn-type":[{"value":"0027-8424","type":"print"},{"value":"1091-6490","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2005,4,27]]},"assertion":[{"value":"2005-02-03","order":0,"name":"received","label":"Received","group":{"name":"publication_history","label":"Publication History"}},{"value":"2005-04-27","order":2,"name":"published","label":"Published","group":{"name":"publication_history","label":"Publication History"}}]}}