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The British Journal of Social Psychology Jul 2023Punishment is expected to have an educative, behaviour-controlling effect on the transgressor. Yet, this effect often remains unattained. Here, we test the hypothesis...
Punishment is expected to have an educative, behaviour-controlling effect on the transgressor. Yet, this effect often remains unattained. Here, we test the hypothesis that transgressors' inferences about punisher motives crucially shape transgressors' post-punishment attitudes and behaviour. As such, we give primacy to the social and relational dimensions of punishment in explicating how sanctions affect outcomes. Across four studies using different methodologies (N = 1189), our findings suggest that (a) communicating punishment respectfully increases transgressor perceptions that the punisher is trying to repair the relationship between the transgressor and their group (relationship-oriented motive) and reduces perceptions of harm-oriented and self-serving motives, and that (b) attributing punishment to relationship-oriented (vs. harm/self-oriented, or even victim-oriented) motives increases prosocial attitudes and behaviour. This research consolidates and extends various theoretical perspectives on interactions in justice settings, providing suggestions for how best to deliver sanctions to transgressors.
Topics: Humans; Punishment; Motivation; Social Behavior; Educational Status
PubMed: 36892128
DOI: 10.1111/bjso.12638 -
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews Oct 2014Deakin and Graeff proposed that forebrain 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) projections are activated by aversive events and mediate anticipatory coping responses including... (Review)
Review
Deakin and Graeff proposed that forebrain 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) projections are activated by aversive events and mediate anticipatory coping responses including avoidance learning and suppression of the fight-flight escape/panic response. Other theories proposed 5-HT mediates aspects of behavioural inhibition or reward. Most of the evidence comes from rodent studies. We review 36 experimental studies in humans in which the technique of acute tryptophan depletion (ATD) was used to explicitly address the role of 5-HT in response inhibition, punishment and reward. ATD did not cause disinhibition of responding in the absence of rewards or punishments (9 studies). A major role for 5-HT in reward processing is unlikely but further tests are warranted by some ATD findings. Remarkably, ATD lessened the ability of punishments (losing points or notional money) to restrain behaviour without affecting reward processing in 7 studies. Two of these studies strongly indicate that ATD blocks 5-HT mediated aversively conditioned Pavlovian inhibition and this can explain a number of the behavioural effects of ATD.
Topics: Humans; Inhibition, Psychological; PubMed; Punishment; Reward; Tryptophan
PubMed: 25195164
DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2014.07.024 -
Cortex; a Journal Devoted To the Study... Dec 2021Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptomatology disrupts inhibitory control during sustained attention. However, PTSD-related inhibitory control deficits are...
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptomatology disrupts inhibitory control during sustained attention. However, PTSD-related inhibitory control deficits are partially ameliorated when punishments and rewards are administered based on task performance, which suggests motivational processes contribute to these deficits. Additionally, PTSD may also impair error-related cognitive control following inhibitory control failures as measured by post-error slowing (PES). However, it remains unclear if motivational processes also contribute to impaired error-related cognitive control in PTSD. Using an incentivized sustained attention paradigm in two independent samples of post-9/11 veterans, we characterized PTSD-related differences in PES during both non-motivated conditions (no task-based incentives) and motivated conditions (task-based rewards and punishments). In Study 1 (n = 139), PTSD symptom severity was modestly associated with smaller PES in the non-motivated condition, whereas no PTSD-related association was observed in the motivated condition. In Study 2 (n = 35), we replicated and extended these results by using fMRI to characterize modulation of the triple network system comprised of the Salience Network (SN), Frontoparietal Control Network (FPCN), and Default Mode Network (DMN). In the non-motivated condition, PTSD symptom severity was associated with non-specific SN and FPCN hyperactivation during both failed and successful inhibitory control. In the motivated condition, PTSD symptom severity was associated with greater focal activation of both the SN and Superior Parietal Lobule cluster (an FPCN node) during punished inhibitory control failures and weaker SN-FPCN connectivity during rewarded inhibitory control successes. Together, these results suggest that dysregulated motivational processes in PTSD may contribute to impaired error-related cognitive control.
Topics: Brain; Cognition; Humans; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Punishment; Reward; Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic
PubMed: 34775266
DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2021.09.004 -
Learning & Memory (Cold Spring Harbor,... Feb 2015Aversive stimuli not only support fear conditioning to their environmental antecedents, they also punish behaviors that cause their occurrence. The amygdala, especially...
Aversive stimuli not only support fear conditioning to their environmental antecedents, they also punish behaviors that cause their occurrence. The amygdala, especially the basolateral nucleus (BLA), has been critically implicated in Pavlovian fear learning but its role in punishment remains poorly understood. Here, we used a within-subjects punishment task to assess the role of the BLA in the acquisition and expression of punishment as well as aversive choice. Rats that pressed two individually presented levers for pellet rewards rapidly suppressed responding to one lever if it also caused footshock deliveries (punished lever) but continued pressing a second lever that did not cause footshock (unpunished lever). Infusions of GABA agonists baclofen and muscimol (BM) into the BLA significantly impaired the acquisition of this suppression. BLA inactivations using BM also reduced the expression of well-trained punishment. There was anatomical segregation within the BLA so that caudal, not rostral, BLA was implicated in punishment. However, when presented with punished and unpunished levers simultaneously in a choice test without deliveries of shock punisher, rats expressed a preference for unpunished over the punished lever and BLA inactivations had no effect on this preference. Taken together, these findings indicate that the BLA is important for both the acquisition and expression of punishment but not for aversive choice. This role appears to be linked to neurons in the caudal BLA, rather than rostral BLA, although the circuitry that contributes to this functional segregation is currently unknown, and is most parsimoniously interpreted as a role for caudal BLA in determining the aversive value of the shock punisher.
Topics: Animals; Baclofen; Basolateral Nuclear Complex; Choice Behavior; Conditioning, Classical; Conditioning, Operant; Electroshock; Fear; GABA Agonists; Male; Motor Activity; Muscimol; Punishment; Rats; Rats, Sprague-Dawley; Reinforcement, Psychology
PubMed: 25593299
DOI: 10.1101/lm.035907.114 -
Child Abuse & Neglect Jan 2023In this paper, we examine the antecedents of the sanctions of lashing and imprisonment for juveniles in Saudi Arabia.
OBJECTIVE
In this paper, we examine the antecedents of the sanctions of lashing and imprisonment for juveniles in Saudi Arabia.
PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING
The current study examined 437 court cases and files across several court systems in Saudi Arabia to determine the extent to which justice-involved youth are punished. The data were drawn from hundreds of court files and records received from several court systems in Saudi Arabia spanning 2010 to 2015.
METHODS
We tested several predictor variables on sentence type, number of lashes, and prison length. We employed binary logistic regression to examine sentence type, while we employed negative binomial analysis to examine the second and third dependent variables, number of lashes and length of prison sentence, respectively.
RESULTS
We found that juveniles processed in juvenile court were more likely to receive more lenient sentences than juveniles tried in the general court system. In addition, older juveniles received harsher sentences (flogging and imprisonment) than younger juveniles (flogging or imprisonment), those who committed multiple offenses received more lashes than those who committed a single offense, and those who had both juvenile and adult criminal associates received more lashes than those who had only juvenile criminal associates. Moreover, the number of presiding judges influenced the severity of punishment: justice-involved youth who were tried by a single judge received fewer lashes than justice-involved youth who were tried by three or more judges. Lastly, justice-involved youth tried by a lone judge were less likely to be sentenced to a longer prison term than those tried by three or more judges. However, justice-involved youth tried by two judges received an even longer prison term than those tried by three or more judges.
CONCLUSION
About one-half of all rulings examined in the current study were presided over by a lone judge. While punishments imposed by lone judges were not as severe as those imposed by two judges or three or more judges, Saudi judges wield tremendous power over their fellow citizens, more so because there are no jury trials in the Kingdom. We therefore recommend that judicial training emphasize a "do no harm" principle in sentencing. Because a two-judge panel generally imposes a harsher sentence than a panel with three or more judges, we recommend an extensive examination of the country's prior judicial rulings presided over by two judges to understand why they are more likely to issue harsher sentences than lone judges or three- or four-judge panels. The findings would lead to the development of sentencing guidelines to curb arbitrary sentencing and reverse the generally unpredictable sentence lengths imposed on justice-involved youth.
Topics: Adult; Adolescent; Humans; Criminal Law; Punishment; Saudi Arabia; Crime; Law Enforcement
PubMed: 36395699
DOI: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2022.105948 -
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 -
Scientific Reports Jan 2018Punishment is widely recognized as an effective approach for averting from exploitation by free-riders in human society. However, punishment is costly, and thus rational...
Punishment is widely recognized as an effective approach for averting from exploitation by free-riders in human society. However, punishment is costly, and thus rational individuals are unwilling to take the punishing action, resulting in the second-order free-rider problem. Recent experimental study evidences that individuals prefer conditional punishment, and their punishing decision depends on other members' punishing decisions. In this work, we thus propose a theoretical model for conditional punishment and investigate how such conditional punishment influences cooperation in the public goods game. Considering conditional punishers only take the punishing action when the number of unconditional punishers exceeds a threshold number, we demonstrate that such conditional punishment induces the effect of a double-edged sword on the evolution of cooperation both in well-mixed and structured populations. Specifically, when it is relatively easy for conditional punishers to engage in the punishment activity corresponding to a low threshold value, cooperation can be promoted in comparison with the case without conditional punishment. Whereas when it is relatively difficult for conditional punishers to engage in the punishment activity corresponding to a high threshold value, cooperation is inhibited in comparison with the case without conditional punishment. Moreover, we verify that such double-edged sword effect exists in a wide range of model parameters and can be still observed in other different punishment regimes.
Topics: Cooperative Behavior; Humans; Models, Psychological; Punishment
PubMed: 29323286
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-18727-7 -
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of... Jul 2003This investigation compared the predictions of two models describing the integration of reinforcement and punishment effects in operant choice. Deluty's (1976)...
This investigation compared the predictions of two models describing the integration of reinforcement and punishment effects in operant choice. Deluty's (1976) competitive-suppression model (conceptually related to two-factor punishment theories) and de Villiers' (1980) direct-suppression model (conceptually related to one-factor punishment theories) have been tested previously in nonhumans but not at the individual level in humans. Mouse clicking by college students was maintained in a two-alternative concurrent schedule of variable-interval money reinforcement. Punishment consisted of variable-interval money losses. Experiment 1 verified that money loss was an effective punisher in this context. Experiment 2 consisted of qualitative model comparisons similar to those used in previous studies involving nonhumans. Following a no-punishment baseline, punishment was superimposed upon both response alternatives. Under schedule values for which the direct-suppression model, but not the competitive-suppression model, predicted distinct shifts from baseline performance, or vice versa, 12 of 14 individual-subject functions, generated by 7 subjects, supported the direct-suppression model. When the punishment models were converted to the form of the generalized matching law, least-squares linear regression fits for a direct-suppression model were superior to those of a competitive-suppression model for 6 of 7 subjects. In Experiment 3, a more thorough quantitative test of the modified models, fits for a direct-suppression model were superior in 11 of 13 cases. These results correspond well to those of investigations conducted with nonhumans and provide the first individual-subject evidence that a direct-suppression model, evaluated both qualitatively and quantitatively, describes human punishment better than a competitive-suppression model. We discuss implications for developing better punishment models and future investigations of punishment in human choice.
Topics: Choice Behavior; Competitive Behavior; Humans; Models, Psychological; Punishment; Reinforcement Schedule
PubMed: 13677606
DOI: 10.1901/jeab.2003.80-1 -
Scientific Reports Jun 2023Costly punishment of social norm transgressors by third-parties has been considered as a decisive stage in the evolution of human cooperation. An important facet of...
Costly punishment of social norm transgressors by third-parties has been considered as a decisive stage in the evolution of human cooperation. An important facet of social relationship knowledge concerns the strength of the social ties between individuals, as measured by social distance. Yet, it is unclear how the enforcement of social norms is influenced by the social distance between a third-party and a norm violator at the behavioral and the brain system levels. Here, we investigated how social distance between punishers and norm-violators influences third-party punishment. Participants as third-party punished norm violators more severely as social distance between them increased. Using model-based fMRI, we disentangled key computations contributing to third-party punishment: inequity aversion, social distance between participant and norm violator and integration of the cost to punish with these signals. Inequity aversion increased activity in the anterior cingulate cortex and bilateral insula, and processing social distance engaged a bilateral fronto-parietal cortex brain network. These two brain signals and the cost to punish were integrated in a subjective value signal of sanctions that modulated activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Together, our results reveal the neurocomputational underpinnings of third-party punishment and how social distance modulates enforcement of social norms in humans.
Topics: Humans; Punishment; Brain; Prefrontal Cortex; Affect; Gyrus Cinguli
PubMed: 37380656
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-37286-8 -
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of... Sep 2019An implementation of punishment in the evolutionary theory of behavior dynamics is proposed, and is applied to responding on concurrent schedules of reinforcement with...
An implementation of punishment in the evolutionary theory of behavior dynamics is proposed, and is applied to responding on concurrent schedules of reinforcement with superimposed punishment. In this implementation, punishment causes behaviors to mutate, and to do so with a higher probability in a lean reinforcement context than in a rich one. Computational experiments were conducted in an attempt to replicate three findings from experiments with live organisms. These are (1) when punishment is superimposed on one component of a concurrent schedule, response rate decreases in the punished component and increases in the unpunished component, (2) when punishment is superimposed on both components at equal scheduled rates, preference increases over its no-punishment baseline, and (3) when punishment is superimposed on both components at rates that are proportional to the scheduled rates of reinforcement, preference remains unchanged from the baseline preference. Artificial organisms animated by the theory, and working on concurrent schedules with superimposed punishment, reproduced all of these findings. Given this outcome, it may be possible to discover a steady-state mathematical description of punished choice in live organisms by studying the punished choice behavior of artificial organisms animated by the evolutionary theory.
Topics: Animals; Biological Evolution; Choice Behavior; Columbidae; Conditioning, Operant; Models, Psychological; Psychological Theory; Punishment; Rats; Reinforcement Schedule; Reinforcement, Psychology
PubMed: 31385310
DOI: 10.1002/jeab.543