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Scientific Reports Aug 2023Reward for altruism and punishment for selfishness are crucial components for the maintenance of society. Past studies have provided strong evidence that people are...
Reward for altruism and punishment for selfishness are crucial components for the maintenance of society. Past studies have provided strong evidence that people are willing to incur costs to punish selfish behaviors and to reward altruistic behaviors, but how their willingness to do so depends on their relationship with the individuals conducting the anti-social or pro-social behaviors is much less explored. To probe into this question, we devised a three-stage experiment that combined a revised dictator game and third-party reward or punishment. We employed two payoff frameworks, alignment and conflict, and analyzed how third-party's willingness to reward and punish differed when their interests were either aligned or in conflict with the first-party under observation. We found that due to considerations for personal interests, third-party's reward and punishment levels deviated from what was deemed "legitimate" by society, that is, the level of reward and punishment that enhances society's intrinsic motivations to comply with social norms and act pro-socially. When an anti-social behavior was observed, third-party punished less severely under the alignment framework than under the conflict framework; when a pro-social behavior was observed, third-party demonstrated self-serving reward under the alignment framework, but they rewarded altruistically under the conflict framework. These findings provided evidence for third-party's self-serving reward and punishment.
Topics: Humans; Punishment; Laboratories; Altruism; Social Behavior; Reward
PubMed: 37634044
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-41256-5 -
Developmental Psychobiology Nov 2022The error-related negativity (ERN) is sensitive to individual differences relating to anxiety and is modulated by manipulations that increase the threat-value of...
The error-related negativity (ERN) is sensitive to individual differences relating to anxiety and is modulated by manipulations that increase the threat-value of committing errors. In adults, the ERN magnitude is enhanced when errors are followed by punishment, especially among anxious individuals. Punitive parenting is related to an elevated ERN in children; however, the effects of task-based punishment on the ERN in children have yet to be understood. Furthermore, there is a need to assess developmental periods wherein the ERN might be especially prone to modulation by punishment. We examined the impact of punishment on the ERN in a sample of children and assessed whether the impact of punishment on the ERN was moderated by age and anxiety. Punishment potentiated the ERN in children, especially among higher trait-anxious individuals; the punishment potentiation of the ERN was also associated with older age. The interaction between child age and anxiety symptoms did not significantly predict the punishment potentiation of the ERN; however, both child age and anxiety symptoms uniquely predicted the punishment potentiation of the ∆ERN. Anxious children may be especially prone to punishment-related alterations in error monitoring, and the impact of punishment on the ERN may become more pronounced as children age.
Topics: Child; Adult; Humans; Punishment; Electroencephalography; Psychomotor Performance; Anxiety; Brain; Evoked Potentials
PubMed: 36282739
DOI: 10.1002/dev.22318 -
Journal of the Royal Society, Interface Feb 2021One-shot anonymous unselfishness in economic games is commonly explained by social preferences, which assume that people care about the monetary pay-offs of others.... (Review)
Review
One-shot anonymous unselfishness in economic games is commonly explained by social preferences, which assume that people care about the monetary pay-offs of others. However, during the last 10 years, research has shown that different types of unselfish behaviour, including cooperation, altruism, truth-telling, altruistic punishment and trustworthiness are in fact better explained by preferences for following one's own personal norms-internal standards about what is right or wrong in a given situation. Beyond better organizing various forms of unselfish behaviour, this moral preference hypothesis has recently also been used to increase charitable donations, simply by means of interventions that make the morality of an action salient. Here we review experimental and theoretical work dedicated to this rapidly growing field of research, and in doing so we outline mathematical foundations for moral preferences that can be used in future models to better understand selfless human actions and to adjust policies accordingly. These foundations can also be used by artificial intelligence to better navigate the complex landscape of human morality.
Topics: Altruism; Artificial Intelligence; Cooperative Behavior; Humans; Mathematics; Morals; Punishment
PubMed: 33561377
DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2020.0880 -
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal... Nov 2021Punishment and reputation-based mechanisms play a major role in supporting the evolution of human cooperation. Theoretical accounts and field observations suggest that...
Punishment and reputation-based mechanisms play a major role in supporting the evolution of human cooperation. Theoretical accounts and field observations suggest that humans use multiple tactics to intervene against offences-including confrontation, gossip and ostracism-which have unique benefits and costs. Here, we draw a distinction between punishment tactics (i.e. physical and verbal confrontation) and reputation-based tactics (i.e. gossip and ostracism). Based on this distinction, we sketch the common and unique social functions that different tactics are tailored to serve and describe information-processing mechanisms that potentially underlie decisions concerning how to intervene against offences. We propose that decision rules guiding direct and indirect tactics should weigh information about the benefits of changing others' behaviour versus the costs of potential retaliation. Based on a synthesis of existing evidence, we highlight the role of situational, relational and emotional factors in motivating distinct punishment tactics. We suggest that delineating between direct and indirect tactics can inform debates about the prevalence and functions of punishment and the reputational consequences of third-party intervention against offences. We emphasize the need to study how people use reputation-based tactics for partner recalibration and partner choice, within interdependent relationships and social networks, and in daily life situations. This article is part of the theme issue 'The language of cooperation: reputation and honest signalling'.
Topics: Communication; Cooperative Behavior; Emotions; Humans; Ostracism; Punishment
PubMed: 34601906
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2020.0289 -
Proceedings of the National Academy of... Jun 2023The question of how cooperation evolves and is maintained among nonkin is central to the biological, social, and behavioral sciences. Previous research has focused on...
The question of how cooperation evolves and is maintained among nonkin is central to the biological, social, and behavioral sciences. Previous research has focused on explaining how cooperation in social dilemmas can be maintained by direct and indirect reciprocity among the participants of the social dilemma. However, in complex human societies, both modern and ancient, cooperation is frequently maintained by means of specialized third-party enforcement. We provide an evolutionary-game-theoretic model that explains how specialized third-party enforcement of cooperation (specialized reciprocity) can emerge. A population consists of producers and enforcers. First, producers engage in a joint undertaking represented by a prisoner's dilemma. They are paired randomly and receive no information about their partner's history, which precludes direct and indirect reciprocity. Then, enforcers tax producers and may punish their clients. Finally, the enforcers are randomly paired and may try to grab resources from each other. In order to sustain producer cooperation, enforcers must punish defecting producers, but punishing is costly to enforcers. We show that the threat of potential intraenforcer conflict can incentivize enforcers to engage in costly punishment of producers, provided they are sufficiently informed to maintain a reputation system. That is, the "guards" are guarded by the guards themselves. We demonstrate the key mechanisms analytically and corroborate our results with numerical simulations.
Topics: Humans; Cooperative Behavior; Models, Psychological; Punishment; Biological Evolution; Records; Game Theory
PubMed: 37279275
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2207029120 -
Neuropsychopharmacology : Official... Jan 2022
Topics: Punishment
PubMed: 34645981
DOI: 10.1038/s41386-021-01182-4 -
Scientific Reports Apr 2022To effectively navigate their environments, infants and children learn how to recognize events predict salient outcomes, such as rewards or punishments. Relatively...
To effectively navigate their environments, infants and children learn how to recognize events predict salient outcomes, such as rewards or punishments. Relatively little is known about how children acquire this ability to attach value to the stimuli they encounter. Studies often examine children's ability to learn about rewards and threats using either classical conditioning or behavioral choice paradigms. Here, we assess both approaches and find that they yield different outcomes in terms of which individuals had efficiently learned the value of information presented to them. The findings offer new insights into understanding how to assess different facets of value learning in children.
Topics: Child; Conditioning, Classical; Decision Making; Humans; Infant; Learning; Punishment; Reward
PubMed: 35396382
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-09894-3 -
Psychological Science Aug 2023Punishments are not always administered immediately after a crime is committed. Although scholars and researchers claim that third parties should normatively enact...
Punishments are not always administered immediately after a crime is committed. Although scholars and researchers claim that third parties should normatively enact punishments proportionate to a given crime, we contend that third parties punish transgressors more severely when there is a time delay between a transgressor's crime and when they face punishment for it. We theorize that this occurs because of a perception of unfairness, whereby third parties view the process that led to time delays as unfair. We tested our theory across eight studies, including two archival data sets of 160,772 punishment decisions and six experiments (five preregistered) across 6,029 adult participants. Our results suggest that as time delays lengthen, third parties punish transgressors more severely because of increased perceived unfairness. Importantly, perceived unfairness explained this relationship beyond other alternative mechanisms. We explore potential boundary conditions for this relationship and discuss the implications of our findings.
Topics: Adult; Humans; Punishment; Time Factors
PubMed: 37368957
DOI: 10.1177/09567976231173900 -
Tidsskrift For Den Norske Laegeforening... Nov 2019
Topics: Crime; Punishment
PubMed: 31746157
DOI: 10.4045/tidsskr.19.17.01 -
Psychophysiology Mar 2022The Reward-Positivity (RewP) is a frontocentral event-related potential elicited following reward and punishment feedback. Reinforcement learning theories propose the...
The Reward-Positivity (RewP) is a frontocentral event-related potential elicited following reward and punishment feedback. Reinforcement learning theories propose the RewP reflects a reward prediction error that increases following more favorable (vs. unfavorable) outcomes. An alternative perspective, however, proposes this component indexes a salience-prediction error that increases following more salient outcomes. Evidence from prior studies that included both reward and punishment conditions is mixed, supporting both accounts. However, these studies often varied how feedback stimuli were repeated across reward and punishment conditions. Differences in the frequency of feedback stimuli may drive inconsistencies by introducing salience effects for infrequent stimuli regardless of whether they are associated with rewards or punishments. To test this hypothesis, the current study examined the effect of outcome valence and stimulus frequency on the RewP and neighboring P2 and P3 components in reward, punishment, and neutral contexts across two separate experiments that varied how often feedback stimuli were repeated between conditions. Experiment 1 revealed infrequent feedback stimuli generated overlapping positivity across all three components. However, controlling for stimulus frequency, experiment 2 revealed favorable outcomes that increased RewP and P3 positivity. Together, these results suggest the RewP reflects some combination of reward- and salience-prediction error encoding. Results also indicate infrequent feedback stimuli elicited strong salience effects across all three components that may inflate, eliminate, or reverse outcome valence effects for the RewP and P3. These results resolve several inconsistencies in the literature and have important implications for electrocortical investigations of reward and punishment feedback processing.
Topics: Adolescent; Electroencephalography; Evoked Potentials; Feedback, Psychological; Female; Humans; Male; Punishment; Reinforcement, Psychology; Reward
PubMed: 34847254
DOI: 10.1111/psyp.13981