Solving Conflicts and Sanctions: Results of an Experimental Study

In our study we intend to gain insight into the behaviour of individuals in conflict situations which can be interpreted as sanctions. There are hardly any models of sanctions in literature which can be compared with this idea. An experiment is modelled to analyse the behaviour of individuals in a situation similar to a sequential prisoners’ dilemma. Contingent decisions give us the chance to measure punishment and sanctions.Our approach is similar to an extended model by Bolton, Brandts and Ockenfels (1997), in order to analyse reciprocity in a single framework together with the help of a questionnaire.In our paper we concentrate on whether the attitude towards fairness coincides with the attitude towards the application of sanctions. Further on we will observe that gender and age of the subjects participating has an influence on the degree of punishment used.Results seem to indicate that the role assigned to each participant strongly influences her/his actions towards her/his counterpart. We suppose the reason for this behaviour is that more experienced/older individuals think more about the payoff for their competitors, while less experienced/younger individuals behave significantly more selfishly.Our objectives are to gain more insight into behaviour in dilemma situations and also seek better explanations for individual decisions. Some of the results could help to solve problems concerned with sanctions.