I think the thing you’re looking for is traditionally called “third-party punishment” or “altruistic punishment”, c.f. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_punishment . Wikipedia cites Bendor, Jonathon; Swistak, Piot (2001). “The Evolution of Norms”. American Journal of Sociology. 106 (6): 1493–1545. doi:10.1086/321298, which seems at least moderately non-technical at a glance.
I think I first encountered this in my Moral Psychology class at MIT (syllabus at http://web.mit.edu/holton/www/courses/moralpsych/home.html ), and I believe the citation was E. Fehr & U. Fischbacher ‘The Nature of Human Altruism’ Nature 425 (2003) 785-91. The bottom of the first paragraph on page 787 in https://www.researchgate.net/publication/9042569_The_Nature_of_Human_Altruism (“In fact, it can be shown theoretically thateven a minority of strong reciprocators suffices to discipline amajority of selfish individuals when direct punishment is possible.”) seems related but not exactly what you’re looking for.
I think the thing you’re looking for is traditionally called “third-party punishment” or “altruistic punishment”, c.f. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_punishment . Wikipedia cites Bendor, Jonathon; Swistak, Piot (2001). “The Evolution of Norms”. American Journal of Sociology. 106 (6): 1493–1545. doi:10.1086/321298, which seems at least moderately non-technical at a glance.
I think I first encountered this in my Moral Psychology class at MIT (syllabus at http://web.mit.edu/holton/www/courses/moralpsych/home.html ), and I believe the citation was E. Fehr & U. Fischbacher ‘The Nature of Human Altruism’ Nature 425 (2003) 785-91. The bottom of the first paragraph on page 787 in https://www.researchgate.net/publication/9042569_The_Nature_of_Human_Altruism (“In fact, it can be shown theoretically thateven a minority of strong reciprocators suffices to discipline amajority of selfish individuals when direct punishment is possible.”) seems related but not exactly what you’re looking for.