Does information about toughness decrease fighting? Experimental evidence

Abstract

Will fights erupt when resources are scarce and the rules regulating their distribution are absent or ignored? We conjecture that the answer depends on whether credible information about individuals’ toughness is available. When people send credible signs and signals of their toughness disputes may be solved without violence. We use a laboratory experiment in which subjects create information about their toughness and decide whether to take others’ resources and resist in case others’ attempt to take theirs. Subjects perform a potentially painful but safe physical exercise to create information and to determine who wins and loses fights. This, realistically, ranks subjects according to their toughness and implicates toughness, a quality important in real conflict, in fighting. We find that, consistent with theory, information reduces fighting. This suggests that, in addition to the theories traditionally used to explain prisoner behavior, the availability of credible information about toughness influences prison conflict.