An official website of the United States government
Punishment can serve as a form of communication: People use punishment to express information to its recipients and interpret punishment between third parties as having communicative content. Prior work on the expressive function of punishment has primarily investigated the capacity of punishment in general to communicate a single type of message – e.g., that the punished behavior violated an important norm. The present work expands this framework by testing whether different types of punishment communicate different messages. We distinguish between person-oriented punishments, which seek to harm the recipient, and action-oriented punishments, which seek to undo a harmful action. We show that people interpret action-oriented punishments, compared to person-oriented punishments, to indicate that the recipient will change for the better (Study 1). The communicative theory can explain this finding if people understand action-oriented punishment to send a message that is more effective than person-oriented punishment at causing such a change. Supporting this explanation, inferences about future behavior track the recipients' beliefs about the punishment they received, rather than the punisher's intentions or the actual punishment imposed (Study 2). Indeed, when actual recipients of a person-oriented punishment believed they received an action-oriented punishment and vice versa, predictions of future behavior tracked the recipients' beliefs rather than reality, and judgments about what the recipients learned from the punishments mediated this effect (Study 3). Together, these studies demonstrate that laypeople think different types of punishment send different messages to recipients and that these messages are differentially effective at bringing about behavioral changes.
more »
« less
This content will become publicly available on December 1, 2026
Children’s and adults’ understanding of how punishment shapes social relationships
Punishment regulates selfish behaviors and maintains cooperation. However, because punishment imposes costs on another person, it could also harm relationships. The current work asked how punishment shapes 5- to 10-year-olds' (Study 1; n=128) and adults' (Study 2; n=159) attitudes toward punishers and those who receive punishment as well as their inferences about relationships between punishers and targets. We reasoned that the motives underlying punishment might shape evaluations; punishments motivated by prosocial desires may elicit more positive responses than punishments motivated by antisocial desires. We tested both motives that were external to the punisher (the behavior that elicited the punishment) as well as internal motives (the desire to harm versus rehabilitate transgressors). The main result is that we found negative social relationships among punishers, targets, and observers. Both children and adults preferred punishers who inflicted punishment for behaviors that violated (versus did not violate) norms, preferred targets of punishment who had not (versus had) violated norms, and expected punishers and targets to dislike each other. External motives, but not internal motives, consistently influenced participants’ own social preferences. In contrast, neither external nor internal motives consistently shaped participants' inferences about social relationships between punishers and their targets. Our work contributes to social cognitive development by clarifying how motives shape children's and adults' understanding of social relationships.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 2044360
- PAR ID:
- 10609079
- Publisher / Repository:
- Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
- Volume:
- 260
- Issue:
- C
- ISSN:
- 0022-0965
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 106331
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- morality, punishment, social cognitive development, social relationships
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Laypeople often believe that God punishes transgressions; however, their inferences about God’s punishment motives remain unclear. We addressed this topic by asking laypeople to indicate why God punishes. We also examined participants’ inferences about why humans punish to contribute to scholarly conversations regarding the extent to which people may anthropomorphize God’s mind. In Studies 1A to 1C, participants viewed God as less retributive than humans. In Study 2, participants expected God (vs. humans) to view humans’ true selves more positively; this difference mediated participants’ views of God as less retributive than humans. Study 3 manipulated agents’ views of humans’ true selves and examined how such information influenced each agent’s perceived motives. Participants viewed a given agent as less retributive when that agent regarded the true self as good (versus bad). These findings extend scholarship on lay theories of punishment motives and highlight links between religious and moral cognition.more » « less
-
Abstract Rules serve many important functions in society. One such function is to codify, and make public and enforceable, a society's desired prescriptions and proscriptions. This codification means that rules come with predefined punishments administered by third parties. We argue that when we look at how third parties punish rule violations, we see that rules and their punishments often serve dual functions. They support and help to maintain cooperation as it is usually theorized, but they also facilitate the domination of marginalized others. We begin by reviewing literature on rules and third‐party punishment, arguing that a great deal of punishment research has neglected to consider the unique power of codified rules. We also argue that by focusing on codified rules, it becomes clear that the enforcement of such rules via third‐party punishment is often used to exert control, punish retributively, and oppress outgroup members. By challenging idealized theory of rules as facilitators of social harmony, we highlight their role in satisfying personal punishment motives, and facilitating discrimination in a way that is uniquely justifiable to those who enforce them.more » « less
-
null (Ed.)Background: Online challenges, phenomena that are very familiar to adolescents and young adults who spend large portions of time on social media, range from minimally harmful behaviors intended to support philanthropic endeavors to significantly harmful behaviors that may culminate in injury or death. Objective: This study investigated the beliefs that lead adolescents and young adults to participate in these activities by analyzing the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Ice Bucket Challenge (IBC) to represent the former and the Cinnamon Challenge (CC), the latter. Methods: We conducted a retrospective quantitative study with a total of 471 participants between the ages of 13 and 35 who either had participated in the ALS IBC or the CC or had never participated in any online challenge. We used binomial logistic regression models to classify those who participated in ALS IBC or CC versus those who didn’t with the beliefs from the Integrated Behavioral Model (IBM) as predictors. Results: Our findings showed that both CC and ALS IBC participants had significantly greater positive emotional responses, value for the outcomes of the challenge, and expectation of the public to participate in the challenge in comparison to individuals who never participated in any challenge. In addition, only CC participants perceived positive public opinion about the challenge and perceived the challenge to be easy with no harmful consequences, in comparison to individuals who never participated in any challenge. Conclusions: The constructs that contribute to the spread of online challenge vary based on the level of self-harm involved in it and its purpose. We recommend that intervention efforts be tailored to address the beliefs associated with different types of online challenges.more » « less
-
What Happens When Robots Punish? Evaluating Human Task Performance During Robot-Initiated PunishmentThis article examines how people respond to robot-administered verbal and physical punishments. Human participants were tasked with sorting colored chips under time pressure and were punished by a robot when they made mistakes, such as inaccurate sorting or sorting too slowly. Participants were either punished verbally by being told to stop sorting for a fixed time, or physically, by restraining their ability to sort with an in-house crafted robotic exoskeleton. Either a human experimenter or the robot exoskeleton administered punishments, with participant task performance and subjective perceptions of their interaction with the robot recorded. The results indicate that participants made more mistakes on the task when under the threat of robot-administered punishment. Participants also tended to comply with robot-administered punishments at a lesser rate than human-administered punishments, which suggests that humans may not afford a robot the social authority to administer punishments. This study also contributes to our understanding of compliance with a robot and whether people accept a robot’s authority to punish. The results may influence the design of robots placed in authoritative roles and promote discussion of the ethical ramifications of robot-administered punishment.more » « less
