Laboratory Experiments: Cooperation, Sanctions and Norms

Dear colleagues,

The recent decades have seen a tremendous progress in our understanding of cooperative behavior. In particular, the controlled environment offered by laboratory experiments has allowed the causal identification of potential determinants of cooperation. Among these, social norms have been identified as a key factor. Groups establish and maintain norms of behavior by using various forms of sanctions, such as mutual peer punishment, ostracism, gossip, or shaming. However, there is a large degree of heterogeneity in the content of group norms, the adherence to them, and the way that sanctions are used to sustain them. Since these facets are not yet fully understood, the Special Issue on "Laboratory Experiments: Cooperation, Sanctions and Norms” aims at advancing our knowledge in the mentioned areas. We thus invite submissions that touch upon one or more of these areas. The main focus is on work with lab experiments. Yet, given the current restrictions imposed by Covid-19, we also welcome online experiments and field experiments, as well as theoretical contributions, survey articles, and meta-analyses that do not require new experiments.

Prof. Dr. Sebastian Kube
Prof. Sebastian J. Goerg
Prof. Luke Boosey
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Games is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.