Punishing Cheaters and Rationality

The underlying question is one of rationality.

Do human beings act rationally?

It has been posited that the following reproducible behavior demonstrates irrational/spiteful behavior.

There are two individuals who can stand to gain from a situation. There is an amount of money ($10) available to be distributed between the two individuals. One participant can determine the breakdown of the money to be distributed. For simplicity we will say that he can decide on a split anywhere from 90/10 (the most greedy option) to 10/90 (the least greedy option). If the other person accepts the deal, the money is distributed as agreed upon. But if the other person refuses the deal, neither party receives anything.

It can be assumed that when the offer is deemed "fair" or even "generous" (50%, or 90%, for example) the recipient will accept. But it can be shown that when the offer is deemed unfair, the recipient will often reject the deal, even though it serves as a punishment to both sides. ie. the recipient gives up his/her potential share in order to punish the one making the offer.

This has been characterized as "irrational spite".

I would fundamentally disagree, and would instead argue that this is exactly evidence of the larger point that was being made in the overall discussion - that being the instinctual, rational tendency of certain species to punish cheaters. I assume it would be accepted that the act was a form of "punishment for a cheater". The question is simply one of rationality.

Looked at under the microscope of the single interaction, it can appear as an irrational, spiteful behavior. But looked at from a broader scope, it appears entirely instinctually rational.

Initially we should examine the potential recipient's context for judging the value of the offer. The amount of money involved is weighed against the importance of punishing the cheater. To put it simply, if the person really needs that one dollar, he almost certainly will take the deal. Whereas if the amount of money is of relatively minimal importance to the potential recipient, the benefit of punishing a cheater, and thereby potentially changing the behavior in the future, is of greater potential long-term benefit than the immediate benefit of accepting the unfair offer and encouraging the cheating behavior.

ie. the offer will be rejected by those who can afford to make the moral stand. Is there anything more rational than that?

To make the point further, one would simply use larger dollar amounts. As the dollar amount increases, the potential relative benefit of taking the moral stand over accepting the offer reduces. Assume $100,000.00 and a 10/90 split. $10,000 will be accepted by far more people, than $1 out of $10. As the dollar amount increases, so too will the percentage. There is almost no benefit to refusing the offer at dollar values that represent significant, life-altering amounts.

Perhaps most importantly, there are a variety of other ways to potentially punish the cheater in the future, especially if the dollar amount received affords greater personal freedom of action.

And the likelihood of the act of "punishing the cheater" ever resulting in a larger potential offer in the future tends to zero as the nominal amount of the unfair offer increases. In that sense, even among those for whom the dollar amount is of minimal importance, who can afford to take the "spiteful" moral stand to punish the cheater, if they eventually come to decide that the behavior will not change, and there will be never be a larger/more fair offer (ie. there is no longer-term benefit to be had), those people, too, would eventually come to accept the unfair deal, while stuffing away the feelings of being slighted (and the accompanying desire to punish) for another day and situation.

To summarize:
we do like to punish cheaters, and this is rational
we will engage in actions that cause short-term discomfort (for lack of a better term) in order to engage in that punishment (in fact, this is no different from any other action taken for a payment. the only difference is assuredness of benefit/payment and time frame)
when we are offered an unfair offer that could potentially significantly improve our situation, we will accept that offer even if it remains unfair to the same relative degree

so we decide the worthiness of certain moral stands based on potential costs involved.

I find this behavior a rather straightforward example of the sort of behaviors that would normally be categorized as entirely rational when viewed through the appropriate lens.

Any questions?...........................

err.....

What are your questions?.......

Q. What the holy hell are you talking about?

A. http://oyc.yale.edu/psychology/psyc-110/lecture-12

Q. Really? You made an entire post about what is essentially a semantic difference?

A. Perhaps... which of course implies "perhaps not". Also I don't really appreciate the tone of your questions. Thank you for them nonetheless.