PUNISHMENT AND TYPE OF FEEDBACK IN A SIMULATED COMMONS DILEMMA

351 research participants in groups of three harvested resources from a slowly regenerating, shared pool in a computer-assisted game. Feedba ck after each round of play consisted of information about the status of the resource pool, information about the other participants' harves ting choices, or no feedback at all. Exploitation was either not punis hed or punished by individual or group. Analysis showed that either fo rm of punishment improved harvests from the common resource but that f eedback had no such influence.