Abstract

Aggression is displaced when provocations cannot be directly retaliated against and when it is redirected towards a target innocent of any wrongdoing. We term the latter behavior inappropriate punishment. Although it is a widespread issue, experimental economics has widely ignored it. We fill this gap and find that one-third of unfairly treated subjects punish co-players who are not responsible for the unfairness. Students affiliated with an armed forces university seem to be more likely to engage in this type of punishment behavior than non-soldier students.