Punishment and the potency of group selection

It is known that altruism can be sustained in an evolving population by a process of group selection. There is also existing research on the role that punishment can play in inducing selfish agents to behave more co-operatively or in preventing selfish agents from evolving, and the limitations upon this mechanism. This paper embeds a simple model of a punishment system within an indirect cultural evolution framework. The use of punishment is shown to reduce the potency of the group selection mechanism, and thus the level of evolved altruism. This presents a novel reason why the use of punishment may have negative dynamic welfare implications. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014