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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 -
Scientific Reports Apr 2023Animals can expect rewards under equivocal situations. The lateral hypothalamus (LH) is thought to process motivational information by producing valence signals of...
Animals can expect rewards under equivocal situations. The lateral hypothalamus (LH) is thought to process motivational information by producing valence signals of reward and punishment. Despite rich studies using rodents and non-human primates, these signals have been assessed separately in appetitive and aversive contexts; therefore, it remains unclear what information the LH encodes in equivocal situations. To address this issue, macaque monkeys were conditioned under a bivalent context in which reward and punishment were probabilistically delivered, in addition to appetitive and aversive contexts. The monkeys increased approaching behavior similarly in the bivalent and appetitive contexts as the reward probability increased. They increased avoiding behavior under the bivalent and aversive contexts as the punishment probability increased, but the mean frequency was lower under the bivalent context than under the aversive context. The population activity correlated with these mean behaviors. Moreover, the LH produced fine prediction signals of reward expectation, uncertainty, and predictability consistently in the bivalent and appetitive contexts by recruiting context-independent and context-dependent subpopulations of neurons, while it less produced punishment signals in the aversive and bivalent contexts. Further, neural ensembles encoded context information and "rewarding-unrewarding" and "reward-punishment" valence. These signals may motivate individuals robustly in equivocal environments.
Topics: Animals; Hypothalamic Area, Lateral; Conditioning, Classical; Reward; Primates; Neurons; Punishment; Haplorhini
PubMed: 37045876
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-33026-0 -
The Journal of Neuroscience : the... Jul 2022Human society operates on large-scale cooperation. However, individual differences in cooperativeness and incentives to free ride on others' cooperation make large-scale...
Human society operates on large-scale cooperation. However, individual differences in cooperativeness and incentives to free ride on others' cooperation make large-scale cooperation fragile and can lead to reduced social welfare. Thus, how individual cooperation spreads through human social networks remains puzzling from ecological, evolutionary, and societal perspectives. Here, we identify oxytocin and costly punishment as biobehavioral mechanisms that facilitate the propagation of cooperation in social networks. In three laboratory experiments ( = 870 human participants: 373 males, 497 females), individuals were embedded in heterogeneous networks and made repeated decisions with feedback in games of trust ( = 342), ultimatum bargaining ( = 324), and prisoner's dilemma with punishment ( = 204). In each heterogeneous network, individuals at central positions (hub nodes) were given intranasal oxytocin (or placebo). Giving oxytocin (vs matching placebo) to central individuals increased their trust and enforcement of cooperation norms. Oxytocin-enhanced norm enforcement, but not elevated trust, explained the spreading of cooperation throughout the social network. Moreover, grounded in evolutionary game theory, we simulated computer agents that interacted in heterogeneous networks with central nodes varying in terms of cooperation and punishment levels. Simulation results confirmed that central cooperators' willingness to punish noncooperation allowed the permeation of the network and enabled the evolution of network cooperation. These results identify an oxytocin-initiated proximate mechanism explaining how individual cooperation facilitates network-wide cooperation in human society and shed light on the widespread phenomenon of heterogeneous composition and enforcement systems at all levels of life. Human society operates on large-scale cooperation. Yet because cooperation is exploitable by free riding, how cooperation in social networks emerges remains puzzling from evolutionary and societal perspectives. Here we identify oxytocin and altruistic punishment as key factors facilitating the propagation of cooperation in human social networks. Individuals played repeated economic games in heterogeneous networks where individuals at central positions were given oxytocin or placebo. Oxytocin-enhanced cooperative norm enforcement, but not elevated trust, explained cooperation spreading throughout the social network. Evolutionary simulations confirmed that central cooperators' willingness to punish noncooperation allowed the permeation of the network and enabled the evolution of cooperation. These results identify an oxytocin-initiated proximate mechanism explaining how individual cooperation facilitates network-wide cooperation in human social networks.
Topics: Cooperative Behavior; Female; Game Theory; Humans; Male; Oxytocin; Prisoner Dilemma; Punishment; Social Networking
PubMed: 35760532
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2303-21.2022 -
PloS One 2023As an important means of environmental regulation, environmental punishment lacks in empirical evidence on its impact on regional green technology innovation in China....
As an important means of environmental regulation, environmental punishment lacks in empirical evidence on its impact on regional green technology innovation in China. Based on panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2010 to 2020, this paper systematically examines the relationship between environmental punishment and regional green technology innovation. It is found that environmental punishment has the quantity and quality enhancing effects on regional green technology innovation, and the quantity enhancing effect is greater than the quality enhancing effect. There is no significant effect difference between monetary punishment and non monetary punishment on green technology innovation effect, but the effect of punishment on institutions is obviously greater than that of punishment on individuals. And the performance of ecological provinces and provinces with better legal environment is also relatively better. Environmental punishment enhances the quantity and quality of green technology innovation through pressure, and improves the quality of green technology innovation through deterrence. Besides, in China, deterrence promotes regional green technology innovation together with the Central Government's environmental protection inspection, the national green manufacturing strategies and other policies concerned.
Topics: China; Commerce; Economic Development; Inventions; Punishment; Technology; Sustainable Development; Motivation
PubMed: 37478060
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0288080 -
Scientific Reports Mar 2021The evolution of costly punishment is a puzzle due to cooperators' second-order free-riding. Previous studies have proposed many solutions mainly focused on reducing the...
The evolution of costly punishment is a puzzle due to cooperators' second-order free-riding. Previous studies have proposed many solutions mainly focused on reducing the punishment cost or punishing second-order free riders directly or indirectly. We attempt to explain this confusion from the perspective of punishment motivation, which is why the punisher is willing to pay the cost. The answer is that the punisher is egoistic. Egoistic punishment aims to protect punishers' own cooperative benefits shared by the defectors. In such case, egoistic punishers would pay a cost in punishing defectors and retrieve lost payoffs from defectors. Here, we examined the evolution and performance of egoistic punishment and compared it with typical altruistic punishment using classic peer-punishment and pool-punishment modes. Results showed egoistic punishment can evolve and effectively promote cooperation within a large parameter range, whether in a well-mixed or structured population, or through peer-punishment or pool-punishment modes. This result is also robust to different strategy-updating rules. The evolution under the pool-punishment mechanism is more complicated. The influence of parameters is counter-intuitive because of cycle dominance; namely, the cost is the key factor to control the level of cooperation and the fine determines the ratio of the punishers and cooperators. Compared with altruistic punishment, egoistic punishment can promote cooperation in a lower-fine and higher-cost area, especially in the pool punishment mode, and the egoistic punishers have stronger survivability. Egoistic punishers represent the natural fairness in a social system. Results revealed that focusing on individual equity can significantly promote collective cooperation. This study provides another explanation for the evolution of costly punishment.
PubMed: 33753774
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-85814-1 -
Journal of Abnormal Psychology Feb 2021Paranoia is the exaggerated belief that harm will occur and is intended by others. Although commonly framed in terms of attributing malicious intent to others, recent...
Paranoia is the exaggerated belief that harm will occur and is intended by others. Although commonly framed in terms of attributing malicious intent to others, recent work has explored how paranoia also affects social decision-making, using economic games. Previous work found that paranoia is associated with decreased cooperation and increased punishment in the Dictator Game (where cooperating and punishing involve paying a cost to respectively increase or decrease a partner's income). These findings suggest that paranoia might be associated with variation in subjective reward from positive and/or negative social decision-making, a possibility we explore using a preregistered experiment with U.S.-based participants (n = 2,004). Paranoia was associated with increased self-reported enjoyment of negative social interactions and decreased self-reported enjoyment of prosocial interactions. More paranoid participants attributed stronger harmful intent to a partner. Harmful intent attributions and the enjoyment of negative social interactions positively predicted the tendency to pay to punish the partner. Cooperation was positively associated with the tendency to enjoy prosocial interactions and increased with participant age. There was no main effect of paranoia on tendency to cooperate in this setting. We discuss these findings in light of previous research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Female; Humans; Intention; Male; Middle Aged; Paranoid Disorders; Punishment; Reward; Social Interaction; Social Perception; United States; Young Adult
PubMed: 33271038
DOI: 10.1037/abn0000647 -
Journal of Affective Disorders Jun 2023From a behavioural perspective anhedonia is defined as diminished interest in the engagement of pleasurable activities. Despite its presence across a range of...
BACKGROUND
From a behavioural perspective anhedonia is defined as diminished interest in the engagement of pleasurable activities. Despite its presence across a range of psychiatric disorders, the cognitive processes that give rise to anhedonia remain unclear.
METHODS
Here we examine whether anhedonia is associated with learning from positive and negative outcomes in patients diagnosed with major depression, schizophrenia and opiate use disorder alongside a healthy control group. Responses in the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test - a task associated with healthy prefrontal cortex function - were fitted to the Attentional Learning Model (ALM) which separates learning from positive and negative feedback.
RESULTS
Learning from punishment, but not from reward, was negatively associated with anhedonia beyond other socio-demographic, cognitive and clinical variables. This impairment in punishment sensitivity was also associated with faster responses following negative feedback, independently of the degree of surprise.
LIMITATIONS
Future studies should test the longitudinal association between punishment sensitivity and anhedonia also in other clinical populations controlling for the effect of specific medications.
CONCLUSIONS
Together the results reveal that anhedonic subjects, because of their negative expectations, are less sensitive to negative feedbacks; this might lead them to persist in actions leading to negative outcomes.
Topics: Humans; Schizophrenia; Punishment; Anhedonia; Depression; Opiate Alkaloids; Reward
PubMed: 36889442
DOI: 10.1016/j.jad.2023.02.120