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Nature Communications Jul 2020Across societies, humans punish norm violations. To date, research on the antecedents and consequences of punishment has largely relied upon agent-based modeling and...
Across societies, humans punish norm violations. To date, research on the antecedents and consequences of punishment has largely relied upon agent-based modeling and laboratory experiments. Here, we report a longitudinal study documenting punishment responses to norm violations in daily life (k = 1507; N = 257) and test pre-registered hypotheses about the antecedents of direct punishment (i.e., confrontation) and indirect punishment (i.e., gossip and social exclusion). We find that people use confrontation versus gossip in a context-sensitive manner. Confrontation is more likely when punishers have been personally victimized, have more power, and value offenders more. Gossip is more likely when norm violations are severe and when punishers have less power, value offenders less, and experience disgust. Findings reveal a complex punishment psychology that weighs the benefits of adjusting others' behavior against the risks of retaliation.
Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Aged; Behavior; Emotions; Female; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Morals; Motivation; Punishment; Risk Factors; Young Adult
PubMed: 32647165
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-17286-2 -
Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. Revue... Apr 2022Many parents use physical forms of punishment, including spanking to correct perceived misbehavior. While some authors suggest spanking/slapping is a distinct and...
BACKGROUND
Many parents use physical forms of punishment, including spanking to correct perceived misbehavior. While some authors suggest spanking/slapping is a distinct and "milder" form of physical punishment, parents' use of spanking is consistently associated with poor outcomes for their children. However, less is known about the relationship between spanking/slapping and health and behavioral outcomes in adolescence independent of other childhood adversities.
OBJECTIVES
The objectives of this study were to examine the associations between lifetime experiences of spanking on the bottom and/or slapping on the hand and 3 adolescent outcomes: (a) mental health disorders, (b) physical health conditions, and (c) defiant behaviors, after adjusting for other types of childhood adversities and child maltreatment.
METHODS
Cross-sectional data from the provincially representative 2014 Ontario Child Health Study ( = 6,537 dwellings, response rate = 50.8%) were used. The current study focused on one selected child aged 14 to 17 years within a household ( = 1,883) with data collected from the adolescent and the parent/caregiver. Logistic regression models were used to identify associations with lifetime experiences of spanking/slapping 3 or more times (vs. 0 to 2 times).
RESULTS
Lifetime spanking/slapping was independently associated with increased odds of mental health disorders, physical health conditions, and defiant behaviors in adolescence after adjusting for childhood adversities and child maltreatment (unadjusted and adjusted odds ratios ranging from 1.29 to 2.19).
CONCLUSIONS
These findings suggest that lifetime spanking/slapping is uniquely associated with harmful mental, physical, and behavioral outcomes in adolescence, and efforts should focus on its prevention.
Topics: Adolescent; Child; Child Abuse; Cross-Sectional Studies; Humans; Mental Health; Parents; Punishment
PubMed: 33686872
DOI: 10.1177/07067437211000632 -
Scientific Reports Apr 2022The public goods game is a multiplayer version of the prisoner's dilemma game. In the public goods game, punishment on defectors is necessary to encourage cooperation....
The public goods game is a multiplayer version of the prisoner's dilemma game. In the public goods game, punishment on defectors is necessary to encourage cooperation. There are two types of punishment: peer punishment and pool punishment. Comparing pool punishment with peer punishment, pool punishment is disadvantageous in comparison with peer punishment because pool punishment incurs fixed costs especially if second-order free riders (those who invest in public goods but do not punish defectors) are not punished. In order to eliminate such a flaw of pool punishment, this study proposes the probabilistic pool punishment proportional to the difference of payoff. In the proposed pool punishment, each punisher pays the cost to the punishment pool with the probability proportional to the difference of payoff between his/her payoff and the average payoff of his/her opponents. Comparing the proposed pool punishment with previous pool and peer punishment, in pool punishment of previous studies, cooperators who do not punish defectors become dominant instead of pool punishers with fixed costs. However, in the proposed pool punishment, more punishers and less cooperators coexist, and such state is more robust against the invasion of defectors due to mutation than those of previous pool and peer punishment. The average payoff is also comparable to peer punishment of previous studies.
Topics: Cooperative Behavior; Female; Game Theory; Humans; Male; Peer Group; Prisoner Dilemma; Punishment
PubMed: 35459880
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-10582-5 -
Experimental Psychology Jan 2022A popular tool in the experimental research on dishonest behavior is the die-under-the-cup (DUTC) task in which subjects roll a die in private and report the outcome to...
A popular tool in the experimental research on dishonest behavior is the die-under-the-cup (DUTC) task in which subjects roll a die in private and report the outcome to the experimenter after being promised a payoff which increases with the die's outcome. The present paper reports the results of incorporating collective punishment into the DUTC task. We ran two experiments, each involving two rounds of the task performed in a computer lab. Despite being asked not to cheat, the average reported outcome in the first round exceeded the statistical expectancy of 3.5. The second round of the first experiment involved the threat that if this happened again, each subject would be fined by the difference between the average reported outcome and 3.5. Nevertheless, the average reported outcome in the second round significantly exceeded that of the first round. Running a second experiment, this time without the punishment threat, we ruled out the possibility that the increased cheating in the second round of the first experiment was due to a feedback effect, concluding that the threat of collective punishment acted to encourage cheating rather than helped deterring it.
Topics: Deception; Humans; Punishment
PubMed: 35441525
DOI: 10.1027/1618-3169/a000543 -
Brain and Cognition Feb 2021Acute stress is ubiquitous in everyday life, but the extent to which acute stress affects how people learn from the outcomes of their choices is still poorly understood....
Acute stress is ubiquitous in everyday life, but the extent to which acute stress affects how people learn from the outcomes of their choices is still poorly understood. Here, we investigate how acute stress impacts reward and punishment learning in men using a reinforcement-learning task. Sixty-two male participants performed the task whilst under stress and control conditions. We observed that acute stress impaired participants' choice performance towards monetary gains, but not losses. To unravel the mechanism(s) underlying such impairment, we fitted a reinforcement-learning model to participants' trial-by-trial choices. Computational modeling indicated that under acute stress participants learned more slowly from positive prediction errors - when the outcomes were better than expected - consistent with stress-induced dopamine disruptions. Such mechanistic understanding of how acute stress impairs reward learning is particularly important given the pervasiveness of stress in our daily life and the impact that stress can have on our wellbeing and mental health.
Topics: Dopamine; Humans; Male; Punishment; Reinforcement, Psychology; Reward
PubMed: 33341656
DOI: 10.1016/j.bandc.2020.105657 -
NeuroImage Aug 2020Neural networks for the processing of appetitive and aversive information, in isolation, have been well characterized. However, how the brain integrates competing...
Neural networks for the processing of appetitive and aversive information, in isolation, have been well characterized. However, how the brain integrates competing signals associated with simultaneous appetitive and aversive information is less clear. In particular, it is unknown how the presence of concurrent reward modulates the processing of an aversive event throughout the brain. Here, we utilized a four-armed bandit task in an fMRI study to measure the representation of an aversive electric shock with and without the simultaneous receipt of monetary reward. Using a region of interest (ROI) approach, we first identified regions activated by the experience of aversive electric shock, and then measured how this shock-related activation is modulated by concurrent reward using independent data. Informed by prior literature and our own preliminary data, analyses focused on the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, anterior and posterior insula, anterior cingulate cortex, and the thalamus and somatosensory cortex. We hypothesized that the neural response to punishment in these ROIs would be attenuated by the presence of concurrent reward. However, we found no evidence of concurrent reward attenuating the neural response to punishment in any ROI and also no evidence of concurrent punishment attenuating the neural response to reward in exploratory analyses. Altogether, our findings are consistent with the idea that neural networks responsible for the processing of reward and punishment signals are largely independent of one another, and that representations of overall value or utility are arrived at through the integration of separate reward and punishment signals at later stages of information processing.
Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Brain; Brain Mapping; Decision Making; Electroshock; Female; Humans; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Mental Processes; Nerve Net; Punishment; Reward; Young Adult
PubMed: 32360930
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.116890 -
Neuropsychopharmacology : Official... Jan 2022One behavioral feature of drug addiction is continued drug use despite awareness that this causes negative consequences. Attempts to model this feature in animals...
One behavioral feature of drug addiction is continued drug use despite awareness that this causes negative consequences. Attempts to model this feature in animals typically involve punishing drug self-administration with electrical footshock to identify individuals whose drug use is differently suppressed by punishment. Here we sought to further study individual responsiveness of drug use to punishment in rats self-administering intravenous cocaine. Rats were first trained during several weeks to self-administer cocaine under a fixed-ratio 3 schedule of reinforcement. Then, their self-administration behavior was punished with increasing intensity of footshock (i.e., from 0.1 mA to 0.9 mA, every 30 min). With increasing intensity of punishment, rats first continued to self-administer cocaine before eventually stopping near completely. When retested, however, drug use became more responsive to punishment and was suppressed by a low and initially ineffective footshock intensity (i.e., 0.1 mA). This increase in responsiveness to punishment was seen in all individuals tested, albeit with varying degrees, and was acquired after one single experience with an intensity of punishment that near completely suppressed drug self-administration. Mere passive, non-contingent exposure to the same intensity, however, had no such effect. Once acquired, increased responsiveness to punishment persisted during at least one month when rats were tested every week, but not every day. Finally, increased responsiveness to punishment was not observed after exposure to a non-painful form of punishment (i.e., histamine). Overall, this study reveals that initial responsiveness of drug use to punishment can change rapidly and persistently with experience. We discuss several possible mechanisms that may account for this change in punishment responsiveness and also draw some of the implications and future perspectives for research on animal models of compulsion-like behavior.
Topics: Animals; Cocaine; Cocaine-Related Disorders; Conditioning, Operant; Punishment; Rats; Reinforcement, Psychology; Self Administration
PubMed: 34429520
DOI: 10.1038/s41386-021-01159-3 -
Current Opinion in Anaesthesiology Apr 2023Despite healthcare workers' best intentions, some patients will suffer harm and even death during their journey through the healthcare system. This represents a major... (Review)
Review
PURPOSE OF REVIEW
Despite healthcare workers' best intentions, some patients will suffer harm and even death during their journey through the healthcare system. This represents a major challenge, and many solutions have been proposed during the last decades. How to reduce risk and use adverse events for improvement?
RECENT FINDINGS
The concept of safety culture must be acknowledged and understood for moving from blame to learning. Procedural protocols and reports are only parts of the solution, and this overview paints a broader picture, referring to recent research on the nature of adverse events. The potential harm from advice based on faulty evidence represents a serious risk.
SUMMARY
Focus must shift from an individual perspective to the system, promoting learning rather than punishment and disciplinary sanctions, and the recent opioid epidemic is an example of bad guidelines.
Topics: Humans; Medical Errors; Punishment; Safety Management; Delivery of Health Care; Learning
PubMed: 36700459
DOI: 10.1097/ACO.0000000000001235 -
Personality and Social Psychology... Nov 2021Victims commonly respond to experienced wrongdoing by punishing or forgiving the transgressor. While much research has looked at predictors and immediate consequences of...
Victims commonly respond to experienced wrongdoing by punishing or forgiving the transgressor. While much research has looked at predictors and immediate consequences of these post-transgression responses, comparably less research has addressed the conditions under which punishment or forgiveness have positive or negative downstream consequences on the victim-transgressor relationship. Drawing from research on Social Value Orientation (SVO), we argue that both forgiveness and punishment can be rooted in either prosocial (i.e., relationship- or other-oriented), individualistic (i.e., self-oriented), or competitive (i.e., harm-oriented) motives pursued by the victim. Furthermore, we posit that downstream consequences of forgiveness and punishment crucially depend on how the transgressor interprets the victim's response. The novel motive-attribution framework presented here highlights the importance of alignment between a victim's motives and a transgressor's motive attributions underlying post-transgression responses. This framework thus contributes to a better understanding of positive and negative dynamics following post-transgression interactions.
Topics: Forgiveness; Humans; Motivation; Punishment; Social Perception
PubMed: 33884939
DOI: 10.1177/10888683211007021 -
Scientific Reports Apr 2024In Public Goods Games (PGG), the temptation to free-ride on others' contributions poses a significant threat to the sustainability of cooperative societies. Therefore,...
In Public Goods Games (PGG), the temptation to free-ride on others' contributions poses a significant threat to the sustainability of cooperative societies. Therefore, societies strive to mitigate this through incentive systems, employing rewards and punishments to foster cooperative behavior. Thus, peer punishment, in which cooperators sanction defectors, as well as pool punishment, where a centralized punishment institution executes the punishment, is deeply analyzed in previous works. Although the literature indicates that these methods may enhance cooperation on social dilemmas under particular contexts, there are still open questions, for instance, the structural connection between graduated punishment and the monitoring of public goods games. Our investigation proposes a compulsory PGG framework under Panoptical surveillance. Inspired by Foucault's theories on disciplinary mechanisms and biopower, we present a novel mathematical model that scrutinizes the balance between the severity and scope of punishment to catalyze cooperative behavior. By integrating perspectives from evolutionary game theory and Foucault's theories of power and discipline, this research uncovers the theoretical foundations of mathematical frameworks involved in punishment and discipline structures. We show that well-calibrated punishment and discipline schemes, leveraging the panoptical effect for universal oversight, can effectively mitigate the free-rider dilemma, fostering enhanced cooperation. This interdisciplinary approach not only elucidates the dynamics of cooperation in societal constructs but also underscores the importance of integrating diverse methodologies to address the complexities of fostering cooperative evolution.
Topics: Punishment; Cooperative Behavior; Models, Theoretical; Game Theory; Peer Group
PubMed: 38570552
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-57842-0