Posted on 06/11/2008 1:32:31 PM PDT by forkinsocket
We all bristle at people who put themselves ahead of the common good, whether it is by evading taxes, shirking military service, cheating on bus fares or littering. Many of us will go out of our way to shame, shun or otherwise punish them, researchers have shown. That's how we foster a community that benefits everyone, even at some cost to ourselves.
Economists analyzing ingredients of the social glue that holds us all together wonder whether that public spirit of rebuke and reward is an innate human value or a byproduct of the particular society in which we live. Until recently, however, they rarely have reached across cultural boundaries to compare how people in disparate communities actually weigh private gain against public good.
In the most sweeping global study yet of cooperation, a team of experimental economists tested university students in 15 countries to see how people contribute to joint ventures and what happens to them when they don't. The European research team discovered startling differences in how groups around the world react when punishment is handed out for antisocial behavior.
In some countries, researchers found, almost no good turn went unpunished. "What kept popping up is this element of retaliation," said economist Benedikt Herrmann at the U.K.'s University of Nottingham, who reported the experiment this past March in Science. "It took us by surprise."
Among students in the U.S., Switzerland, China and the U.K., those identified as freeloaders most often took their punishment as a spur to contribute more generously. But in Oman, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Greece and Russia, the freeloaders more often struck back, retaliating against those who punished them, even against those who had given most to everyone's benefit. It was akin to rapping the knuckles of the helping hand.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
the answer is FREEDOM. Societies/Governments that are totalitarian and highly collectivised create cynical individuals.
Why am I not surprised?
If I have cause to use the sidewalk while this inconsiderate narcissist bastard is sitting there, I might have some choice words and a smack upside the head for him.
What are they contributing the tokens for?
The constant focus on hedonism and materialism (”bling”) in Western countries creates cynical people, too.
Walk by him in wet cloths and DRIP on him ..or let the kids run around..if you don’t have kids rent or borrow some!!! LOL
The correct thing to do is to say, “HEY DICKHEAD. THIS IS A SIDEWALK! MOVE IT!”
All societies have what can be called “The Social Sanction”, which means the unwritten law that the public enforces.
Politicians always want to be in charge of the Social Sanction, trying to direct it, or pass written laws that formalize it. But the truth is that it evolves on its own.
As an example, imagine the result if a person put on a t-shirt that said, “I like to molest children”, or “I stomp on kittens”. If they walked down a sidewalk on a busy street, how far would they get before being attacked, either verbally or physically?
Any person might unexpectedly attack them, because that is the nature of the Social Sanction. Importantly, an established Social Sanction is always very harsh in its enforcement.
Another example is a woman who is obese, but is also pregnant, and is sipping a martini and smoking a cigarette.
It is just open season on her.
I often wonder what the tipping point in the USA will be?
Many people I know are just sick and tired of what we call freeloaders, the welfare queens, illegal immigrants, people who abuse and take advantage of the generous safety net democrats have installed to maintain their allegiance and illegal votes
And in Oakland, CA it's "No snitchin!"
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