“How many bad apples does it take to spoil the whole barrel?”: Social exclusion and toleration for bad apples

Group (Re-) formation in public good games: The tale of the bad apple?

“…And, their failure to cooperate in part II cannot be completely explained by their precedent experiences, reciprocity or familiarity. Our finding is strikingly reminiscent of the bad apple-phenomenon (Felps et al 2006, Kerr et al 2009, de Oliveira et al 2014. The bad apple phenomenon is described as a situation of low contributions of all group members, where all group members expect to have one bad apple -i.e.…”

“…We therefore conclude that the subsequent cooperation problems are not due to the one "bad apple" in the group but to the attribution error of permanent members, who believe that they had a "bad apple" in their group and who do not perceive it having one of these subjects permanently in the group as good news. We conclude that besides to the relevance of bad apples for decreased cooperation in groups (see Felps et al 2006, Kerr et al 2009, de Oliveira et al 2014, it is also a "bad barrel" in terms of the history of the structure of group composition that matters.…”

Effects of exclusion on acceptance in ultimatum games

“…More generally, downsizing is a form of ostracism (see, for instance, Cinyabuguma, Page, & Putterman, 2005;Kerr et al, 2009;Maier-Rigaud, Martinsson, & Staffiero, 2010;Masclet, 2003). What is, however, special is that ostracism is usually seen as a form of punishing norm deviators, whereas downsizing is just an attempt to improve a firm's profitability and not at all a sanctioning of underperforming agents.…”

Ostracism and the provision of a public good: experimental evidence

“…Similarly, Kerr et al (2006) analyze the threat of exclusion on the relationship between cooperators and defectors based on previous findings indicating that defectors have a negative impact on the behavior of other group members, i.e. the phenomenon that defectors act as bad apples spoiling the whole barrel.…”