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NeuroImage Apr 2024Punishment of moral norm violators is instrumental for human cooperation. Yet, social and affective neuroscience research has primarily focused on second- and...
Punishment of moral norm violators is instrumental for human cooperation. Yet, social and affective neuroscience research has primarily focused on second- and third-party norm enforcement, neglecting the neural architecture underlying observed (vicarious) punishment of moral wrongdoers. We used naturalistic television drama as a sampling space for observing outcomes of morally-relevant behaviors to assess how individuals cognitively process dynamically evolving moral actions and their consequences. Drawing on Affective Disposition Theory, we derived hypotheses linking character morality with viewers' neural processing of characters' rewards and punishments. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine neural responses of 28 female participants while free-viewing 15 short story summary video clips of episodes from a popular US television soap opera. Each summary included a complete narrative structure, fully crossing main character behaviors (moral/immoral) and the consequences (reward/punishment) characters faced for their actions. Narrative engagement was examined via intersubject correlation and representational similarity analysis. Highest cortical synchronization in 9 specifically selected regions previously implicated in processing moral information was observed when characters who act immorally are punished for their actions with participants' empathy as an important moderator. The results advance our understanding of the moral brain and the role of normative considerations and character outcomes in viewers' engagement with popular narratives.
Topics: Humans; Female; Punishment; Morals; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Adult; Young Adult; Drama; Cortical Synchronization; Empathy; Cerebral Cortex; Narration
PubMed: 38631616
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2024.120613 -
Scientific Reports Jan 2016In the Ultimatum Game (UG), incurring a cost to punish inequity is commonly termed altruistic punishment. This behaviour is thought to benefit others if the defector...
In the Ultimatum Game (UG), incurring a cost to punish inequity is commonly termed altruistic punishment. This behaviour is thought to benefit others if the defector becomes more equitable in future interactions. However, clear connections between punishment in the UG and altruistic behaviours outside the laboratory are lacking. We tested the altruistic punishment hypothesis in a sample of extraordinarily altruistic adults, predicting that if punishing inequity is predictive of altruism more broadly, extraordinary altruists should punish more frequently. Results showed that punishment was not more prevalent in extraordinary altruists than controls. However, a self-reported altruism measure previously linked to peer evaluations but not behaviour, and on which extraordinary altruists and controls did not differ, did predict punishment. These findings support suggestions that altruistic punishment in the UG is better termed costly punishment and may be motivated by social, but not necessarily prosocial, concerns. Results also support prior suggestions that self-reported altruism may not reliably predict altruistic behaviour.
Topics: Adult; Altruism; Cooperative Behavior; Decision Making; Empathy; Female; Games, Experimental; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Punishment; Tissue Donors
PubMed: 26739364
DOI: 10.1038/srep18974 -
Human Brain Mapping Dec 2021Individuals who violate social norms will most likely face social punishment sanctions. Those sanctions are based on different motivation aspects, depending on the... (Meta-Analysis)
Meta-Analysis
Individuals who violate social norms will most likely face social punishment sanctions. Those sanctions are based on different motivation aspects, depending on the context. Altruistic punishment occurs if punishment aims to re-establish the social norms even at cost for the punisher. Retaliatory punishment is driven by anger or spite and aims to harm the other. While neuroimaging research highlighted the neural networks supporting decision-making in both types of punishment in isolation, it remains unclear whether they rely on the same or distinct neural systems. We ran an activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis on functional magnetic resonance imaging data on 24 altruistic and 19 retaliatory punishment studies to investigate the neural correlates of decision-making underlying social punishment and whether altruistic and retaliatory punishments share similar brain networks. Social punishment reliably activated the bilateral insula, inferior frontal gyrus, midcingulate cortex (MCC), and superior and medial frontal gyri. This network largely overlapped with activation clusters found for altruistic punishment. However, retaliatory punishment revealed only one cluster in a posterior part of the MCC, which was not recruited in altruistic punishment. Our results support previous models on social punishment and highlight differential involvement of the MCC in altruistic and retaliatory punishments, reflecting the underlying different motivations.
Topics: Aggression; Altruism; Brain Mapping; Cerebral Cortex; Decision Making; Humans; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Motivation; Punishment; Social Norms
PubMed: 34415078
DOI: 10.1002/hbm.25635 -
ENeuro 2019The majority of the research studying punishment has focused on an aversive stimulus delivered immediately after an action. However, in real-world decision-making,...
The majority of the research studying punishment has focused on an aversive stimulus delivered immediately after an action. However, in real-world decision-making, negative consequences often occur long after a decision has been made. This can engender myopic decisions that fail to appropriately respond to consequences. Whereas discounting of delayed rewards has been well studied in both human and animal models, systematic discounting of delayed consequences remains largely unexplored. To address this gap in the literature, we developed the delayed punishment decision-making task. Rats chose between a small, single-pellet reinforcer and a large, three-pellet reinforcer accompanied by a mild foot shock. The shock was preceded by a delay, which systematically increased throughout the session (0, 4, 8, 12, 16 s). On average, rats discounted the negative value of delayed punishment, as indicated by increased choice of the large, punished reward as the delay preceding the shock lengthened. Female rats discounted delayed punishment less than males, and this behavior was not influenced by estrous cycling. The addition of a cue light significantly decreased the undervaluation of delayed consequences for both sexes. Finally, there was no correlation between the discounting of delayed punishments and a traditional reward delay discounting task for either sex. These data indicate that the ability of punishment to regulate decision-making is attenuated when punishment occurs later in time. This task provides an avenue for exploration of the neural circuitry underlying the devaluation of delayed punishment and may assist in developing treatments for substance use disorders.
Topics: Animals; Behavior, Animal; Biobehavioral Sciences; Conditioning, Operant; Cues; Delay Discounting; Electroshock; Female; Male; Punishment; Rats, Long-Evans; Reward; Sex Characteristics
PubMed: 31387878
DOI: 10.1523/ENEURO.0225-19.2019 -
Evolutionary Computation 2012Altruistic punishment occurs when an agent incurs a cost to punish another but receives no material benefit for doing so. Despite the seeming irrationality of such...
Altruistic punishment occurs when an agent incurs a cost to punish another but receives no material benefit for doing so. Despite the seeming irrationality of such behavior, humans in laboratory settings routinely pay to punish others even in anonymous, one-shot settings. Costly punishment is ubiquitous among social organisms in general and is increasingly accepted as a mechanism for the evolution of cooperation. Yet if it is true that punishment explains cooperation, the evolution of altruistic punishment remains a mystery. In a series of computer simulations I give agents the ability to punish one another while playing a continuous prisoner's dilemma. In simulations without social structure, expected behavior evolves-agents do not punish and consequently no cooperation evolves. Likewise, in simulations with social structure but no ability to punish, no cooperation evolves. However, in simulations where agents are both embedded in a social structure and have the option to inflict costly punishment, cooperation evolves quite readily. This suggests a simple and broadly applicable explanation of cooperation for social organisms that have nonrandom social structure and a predisposition to punish one another. Results with scale-free networks further suggest that nodal degree distribution plays an important role in determining whether cooperation will evolve in a structured population.
Topics: Altruism; Computer Simulation; Cooperative Behavior; Game Theory; Humans; Models, Psychological; Punishment
PubMed: 22171813
DOI: 10.1162/EVCO_a_00062 -
Proceedings. Biological Sciences Nov 2011Understanding how societies resolve conflicts between individual and common interests remains one of the most fundamental issues across disciplines. The observation that...
Understanding how societies resolve conflicts between individual and common interests remains one of the most fundamental issues across disciplines. The observation that humans readily incur costs to sanction uncooperative individuals without tangible individual benefits has attracted considerable attention as a proximate cause as to why cooperative behaviours might evolve. However, the proliferation of individually costly punishment has been difficult to explain. Several studies over the last decade employing experimental designs with isolated groups have found clear evidence that the costs of punishment often nullify the benefits of increased cooperation, rendering the strong human tendency to punish a thorny evolutionary puzzle. Here, we show that group competition enhances the effectiveness of punishment so that when groups are in direct competition, individuals belonging to a group with punishment opportunity prevail over individuals in a group without this opportunity. In addition to competitive superiority in between-group competition, punishment reduces within-group variation in success, creating circumstances that are highly favourable for the evolution of accompanying group-functional behaviours. We find that the individual willingness to engage in costly punishment increases with tightening competitive pressure between groups. Our results suggest the importance of intergroup conflict behind the emergence of costly punishment and human cooperation.
Topics: Competitive Behavior; Conflict, Psychological; Cooperative Behavior; Cultural Evolution; Game Theory; Games, Experimental; Group Processes; Humans; Models, Psychological; Punishment; Social Behavior
PubMed: 21450740
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2011.0252 -
Journal of Theoretical Biology Sep 2013In natural resource managements, people often overcome tragedy of commons by developing an institution that punishes selfish actions, thus enhancing pro-social behavior....
In natural resource managements, people often overcome tragedy of commons by developing an institution that punishes selfish actions, thus enhancing pro-social behavior. Elinor Ostrom reported that many successful communities apply graduated punishment--the punishment level gradually increases with the amount of harm of the selfish action. This observation is apparently in conflict with a theoretical study of public good game supporting a severe and strict punishment. Here, we study the conditions in which graduated punishment enforces cooperation most efficiently. If people follow a quantal response equilibrium, the optimal punishment is a jump from no punishment to a high level of punishment then increases little with the societal harm, which is inconsistent with the graduated punishment concept. We find that the graduated punishment is the most efficient rule if there is a small probability that player's action is reported incorrectly and if players are heterogeneous in their sensitivity to utility (or payoff) difference. We derive a mathematical formula for the optimal punishment when people's sensitivity to utility difference follows an exponential distribution. When the magnitude of harm is large, the optimal punishment increases in proportion to the square root of the societal harm, thus confirming the efficiency of the graduated punishment.
Topics: Conservation of Natural Resources; Female; Humans; Male; Models, Theoretical; Punishment; Social Behavior
PubMed: 23721682
DOI: 10.1016/j.jtbi.2013.05.007 -
PloS One 2021A large body of empirical evidence suggests that altruistic punishment abounds in human societies. Based on such evidence, it is suggested that punishment serves an...
A large body of empirical evidence suggests that altruistic punishment abounds in human societies. Based on such evidence, it is suggested that punishment serves an important role in promoting cooperation in humans and possibly other species. However, as punishment is costly, its evolution is subject to the same problem that it tries to address. To suppress this so-called second-order free-rider problem, known theoretical models on the evolution of punishment resort to one of the few established mechanisms for the evolution of cooperation. This leaves the question of whether altruistic punishment can evolve and give rise to the evolution of cooperation in the absence of such auxiliary cooperation-favoring mechanisms unaddressed. Here, by considering a population of individuals who play a public goods game, followed by a public punishing game, introduced here, we show that altruistic punishment indeed evolves and promotes cooperation in the absence of a cooperation-favoring mechanism. In our model, the punishment pool is considered a public resource whose resources are used for punishment. We show that the evolution of a punishing institution is facilitated when resources in the punishment pool, instead of being wasted, are used to reward punishers when there is nobody to punish. Besides, we show that higher returns to the public resource or punishment pool facilitate the evolution of prosocial instead of antisocial punishment. We also show that an optimal cost of investment in the punishment pool facilitates the evolution of prosocial punishment. Finally, our analysis shows that being close to a physical phase transition facilitates the evolution of altruistic punishment.
Topics: Models, Theoretical; Punishment; Social Behavior; Time Factors
PubMed: 34358254
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0254860 -
Cognition Jan 2015Human adults engage in costly third-party punishment of unfair behavior, but the developmental origins of this behavior are unknown. Here we investigate costly...
Human adults engage in costly third-party punishment of unfair behavior, but the developmental origins of this behavior are unknown. Here we investigate costly third-party punishment in 5- and 6-year-old children. Participants were asked to accept (enact) or reject (punish) proposed allocations of resources between a pair of absent, anonymous children. In addition, we manipulated whether subjects had to pay a cost to punish proposed allocations. Experiment 1 showed that 6-year-olds (but not 5-year-olds) punished unfair proposals more than fair proposals. However, children punished less when doing so was personally costly. Thus, while sensitive to cost, they were willing to sacrifice resources to intervene against unfairness. Experiment 2 showed that 6-year-olds were less sensitive to unequal allocations when they resulted from selfishness than generosity. These findings show that costly third-party punishment of unfair behavior is present in young children, suggesting that from early in development children show a sophisticated capacity to promote fair behavior.
Topics: Child; Child Behavior; Child Development; Child, Preschool; Cooperative Behavior; Female; Humans; Male; Punishment
PubMed: 25460374
DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2014.08.013 -
Emotion (Washington, D.C.) Jun 2022The willingness of humans to engage in third-party punishment (TPP)-a lynchpin of our society-critically depends on the interaction between the wrongdoer's intent and...
The willingness of humans to engage in third-party punishment (TPP)-a lynchpin of our society-critically depends on the interaction between the wrongdoer's intent and the harm that he caused. But what compels us to punish such individuals when we are unaffected by their harms? Inconsistent with the idealized notion that TPP decisions are based on purely cognitive reasoning, intended harmful acts elicit strong emotional reactions in third-party decision makers. While these emotional responses are now believed to be a driving force in TPP decision making, there is debate about what emotions may be motivating this behavior. Here we show that-unlike anger, contempt, and disgust-moral outrage is evoked by the integration of culpable intent and severe harm, and that the expression of moral outrage alone mediates the relationship between this integrative process and punishment decisions. Sadness had the opposite effect of dampening punishment in response to accidental harms. We take these findings to indicate that moral outrage expresses the interaction of intent and harm in driving third-party punishment behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
Topics: Anger; Emotions; Humans; Intention; Male; Morals; Punishment
PubMed: 33661665
DOI: 10.1037/emo0000950