The value of vengeance and the demand for deterrence

Developing conceptions of forgiveness across the lifespan

Understanding how to respond to transgressions is central to cooperation, yet little is known about how individuals understand the consequences of these responses. Accordingly, the current study explored children's (ages 5-9), adolescents' (ages 11-14), and adults' (N = 544, predominantly White, ~50% female, tested in 2021) understandings of three such responses-forgiveness, punishment, and doing nothing. At all ages, participants differentiated between the consequences of these three responses. Forgiveness was associated with more positive and fewer negative outcomes, while the opposite was true for punishment and doing nothing. With age, participants were less likely to expect positive outcomes, and this effect was strongest for punishment and doing nothing. The results of this study allow novel insights into reasoning about three important response strategies.

How retributive motives shape the emergence of third-party punishment across intergroup contexts

This study examines how retributive motives-the desire to punish for the purpose of inflicting harm in the absence of future benefits-shape third-party punishment behavior across intergroup contexts. Six- to nine-year-olds (N = 151, Mage = 8.00, SDage = 1.15; 54% White, 18% mixed ethnicities, 17% Asian American; 46% female; from the USA) could punish ingroup, outgroup, or non-group transgressors by removing positive resources and allocating negative ones. Both punishments were described as retributive, yet allocating negative resources was perceived as more retributive than removing positive ones. We predicted that children would punish outgroups more so than ingroups and that this effect would be especially pronounced when punishment is perceived as particularly retributive. The results did not align with this prediction; instead, children similarly punished all agents.

Verbal Aggressions Against Major League Baseball Umpires Affect Their Decision Making

Excessively criticizing a perceived unfair decision is considered to be common behavior among people seeking to restore fairness. However, the effectiveness of this strategy remains unclear. Using an ecological environment where excessive criticism is rampant-Major League Baseball-we assess the impact of verbal aggression on subsequent home-plate umpire decision making during the 2010 to 2019 seasons (N = 153,255 pitches). Results suggest a two-sided benefit of resorting to verbal abuse. After being excessively criticized, home-plate umpires (N = 110 adults, employed in the United States) were less likely to call strikes to batters from the complaining team and more prone to call strikes to batters on the opposing team. A series of additional analyses lead us to reject an alternative hypothesis, namely that umpires, after ejecting the aggressor, seek to compensate for the negative consequences brought on by the loss of a teammate. Rather, our findings support the hypothesis that, under certain conditions, verbal aggression may offer an advantage to complainants.

The effect of wrongdoer's status on observer punishment recommendations: the mediating role of envy and the moderating role of belief in a just world

Our proposition postulates that the correlation between the wrongdoer's status and the punishment suggestions of onlookers is primarily influenced by group-oriented envy rather than the ascription of intentionality and is moderated by the belief in a just world. In three separate studies, 389 university students were asked to read scenarios describing a hit-and-run crime committed by either a rich or a poor individual and then report their opinions on intentionality attribution (Study 1 and Study 2), envy emotions (Study 2), punishment recommendations (all three studies), and belief in a just world (Study 3). Consistently, the findings indicated that those observing recommended harsher penalties to be imposed upon high-status perpetrators engaging in the same wrongdoing (such as hit-and-run) as their low-status equivalents. The effect of the rich receiving more severe punishment was predicted more strongly by envious emotions than by intentionality attributions to high-status wrongdoers and was only present for those observers who endorsed a lower belief in a just world.

The science of justice: The neuropsychology of social punishment

The social punishment (SP) of norm violations has received much attention across multiple disciplines. However, current models of SP fail to consider the role of motivational processes, and none can explain the observed behavioral and neuropsychological differences between the two recognized forms of SP: second-party punishment (2PP) and third-party punishment (3PP). After reviewing the literature giving rise to the current models of SP, we propose a unified model of SP which integrates general psychological descriptions of decision-making as a confluence of affect, cognition, and motivation, with evidence that SP is driven by two main factors: the amount of harm (assessed primarily in the salience network) and the norm violator's intention (assessed primarily in the default-mode and central-executive networks). We posit that motivational differences between 2PP and 3PP, articulated in mesocorticolimbic pathways, impact final SP by differentially impacting the assessments of harm and intention done in these domain-general large-scale networks. This new model will lead to a better understanding of SP, which might even improve forensic, procedural, and substantive legal practices.

Norm Dynamics: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Social Norm Emergence, Persistence, and Change

Social norms are the glue that holds society together, yet our knowledge of them remains heavily intellectually siloed. This article provides an interdisciplinary review of the emerging field of norm dynamics by integrating research across the social sciences through a cultural-evolutionary lens. After reviewing key distinctions in theory and method, we discuss research on norm psychology-the neural and cognitive underpinnings of social norm learning and acquisition. We then overview how norms emerge and spread through intergenerational transmission, social networks, and group-level ecological and historical factors. Next, we discuss multilevel factors that lead norms to persist, change, or erode over time. We also consider cultural mismatches that can arise when a changing environment leads once-beneficial norms to become maladaptive. Finally, we discuss potential future research directions and the implications of norm dynamics for theory and policy.

Rethinking Norm Psychology

Norms permeate human life. Most of people's activities can be characterized by rules about what is appropriate, allowed, required, or forbidden-rules that are crucial in making people hyper-cooperative animals. In this article, I examine the current cognitive-evolutionary account of "norm psychology" and propose an alternative that is better supported by evidence and better placed to promote interdisciplinary dialogue. The incumbent theory focuses on rules and claims that humans genetically inherit cognitive and motivational mechanisms specialized for processing these rules. The cultural-evolutionary alternative defines normativity in relation to behavior-compliance, enforcement, and commentary-and suggests that it depends on implicit and explicit processes. The implicit processes are genetically inherited and domain-general; rather than being specialized for normativity, they do many jobs in many species. The explicit processes are culturally inherited and domain-specific; they are constructed from mentalizing and reasoning by social interaction in childhood. The cultural-evolutionary, or "cognitive gadget," perspective suggests that people alive today-parents, educators, elders, politicians, lawyers-have more responsibility for sustaining normativity than the nativist view implies. People's actions not only shape and transmit the rules, but they also create in each new generation mental processes that can grasp the rules and put them into action.

Third-party punishers who express emotions are trusted more

Third party punishment (TPP) is thought to be crucial to the evolution and maintenance of human cooperation. However, this type of punishment is often not rewarded, perhaps because punishers' underlying motives are unclear. We propose that the expression of moral emotions could solve this problem by advertising such motives. In each of three experiments (n = 1711), a third-party punishment game was followed by a trust game. Third parties expressed anger or disgust instead of, or in addition to, financial punishment. Results showed that third parties who expressed these emotions were trusted more than those who didn't express (Experiment 1), and more than those who financially punished (Experiment 2). Moreover, third parties who expressed while financially punishing were trusted more than those who punished without expressing (Experiment 3). Findings suggest that emotion expression might play a role in the evolution and maintenance of cooperation by facilitating TPP.

Children endorse deterrence motivations for third-party punishment but derive higher enjoyment from compensating victims

Children's punishment behavior may be driven by both retribution and deterrence, but the potential primacy of either motive is unknown. Moreover, children's punishment enjoyment and compensation enjoyment have never been directly contrasted. Here, British, Colombian, and Italian 7- to 11-year-old children (N = 123) operated a Justice System in which they viewed different moral transgressions in Minecraft, a globally popular video game, either face-to-face with an experimenter or over the internet. Children could respond to transgressions by punishing transgressors and compensating victims. The purpose of the system was framed in terms of retribution, deterrence, or compensation between participants. Children's performance, endorsement, and enjoyment of punishment and compensation were measured, along with their endorsement of retribution versus deterrence as punishment justifications, during and/or after justice administration. Children overwhelmingly endorsed deterrence over retribution as their punishment justification irrespective of age. When asked to reproduce the presented frame in their own words, children more reliably reproduced the deterrence frame rather than the retribution frame. Punishment enjoyment decreased while compensation enjoyment increased over time. Despite enjoying compensation more, children preferentially endorsed punishment over compensation, especially with increasing age and transgression severity. Reported deterrent justifications, superior reproduction of deterrence framing, lower enjoyment of punishment than of compensation, and higher endorsement of punishment over compensation together suggest that children felt that they ought to mete out punishment as a means to deter future transgressions. Face-to-face and internet-mediated responses were not distinguishable, supporting a route to social psychology research with primary school-aged children unable to physically visit labs.

Intimate Partner Violence in Fiji: How the Perpetrator Is "Rewarded" for Perceived Victim Suffering

Although intimate partner violence is rampant in Fiji, limited research has investigated the perception of appropriate legal sanctions for the perpetrators. We explored whether victim characteristics and perceived victim suffering would independently or jointly influence perpetrator-directed legal sanctions. Undergraduates read an IPV passage with the victim portrayed as a sexual norm violator, a career-focused mother, or a control victim. At high levels of perceived victim suffering, participants "rewarded" the perpetrator by reporting less punitive reactions and reduced perceived culpability in the norm violating victim condition. No differences emerged at low levels of perceived suffering. Implications for the Metanorm Perspective are discussed.

Doesn't everybody jaywalk? On codified rules that are seldom followed and selectively punished

Rules are meant to apply equally to all within their jurisdiction. However, some rules are frequently broken without consequence for most. These rules are only occasionally enforced, often at the discretion of a third-party observer. We propose that these rules-whose violations are frequent, and enforcement is rare-constitute a unique subclass of explicitly codified rules, which we call 'phantom rules' (e.g., proscribing jaywalking). Their apparent punishability is ambiguous and particularly susceptible to third-party motives. Across six experiments, (N = 1440) we validated the existence of phantom rules and found evidence for their motivated enforcement. First, people played a modified Dictator Game with a novel frequently broken and rarely enforced rule (i.e., a phantom rule). People enforced this rule more often when the "dictator" was selfish (vs. fair) even though the rule only proscribed fractional offers (not selfishness). Then we turned to third person judgments of the U.S. legal system. We found these violations are recognizable to participants as both illegal and commonplace (Experiment 2), differentiable from violations of prototypical laws (Experiments 3) and enforced in a motivated way (Experiments 4a and 4b). Phantom rule violations (but not prototypical legal violations) are seen as more justifiably punished when the rule violator has also violated a social norm (vs. rule violation alone)-unless the motivation to punish has been satiated (Experiment 5). Phantom rules are frequently broken, codified rules. Consequently, their apparent punishability is ambiguous, and their enforcement is particularly susceptible to third party motives.

Time Pressure Weakens Social Norm Maintenance in Third-Party Punishment

Decision-making under time pressure may better reflect an individual's response preference, but few studies have examined whether individuals choose to be more selfish or altruistic in a scenario where third-party punishment is essential for maintaining social norms. This study used a third-party punishment paradigm to investigate how time pressure impacts on individuals' maintenance of behavior that follows social norms. Thirty-one participants observed a Dictator Game and had to decide whether to punish someone who made what was categorized as a high unfair offer by spending their own Monetary units to reduce that person's payoff. The experiment was conducted across different offer conditions. The study results demonstrated that reaction times were faster under time pressure compared with no time pressure. Time pressure was also correlated with less severe punishment. Specifically, participants were less likely to punish the dictator under time pressure compared with no time pressure when the offer was categorized as a high unfair. The findings suggested that individuals in these game conditions and under time pressure do not overcome their pro-selves and that time pressure weakens an individual's willingness to punish high unfair offers.

Not revenge, but change is sweet: Experimental evidence of how offender change and punishment play independent roles in victims' sense of justice

What positive effects do victims gain by punishing their offenders? Previous research suggests that punishment increases victims' justice-related satisfaction only when the offender indicates that they changed their moral attitude and behaviour. However, offender change may increase justice-related satisfaction independently of punishment. So far, it is empirically unclear whether punishment affects satisfaction beyond offender change (e.g. by producing the change), and whether punishment has positive effects on victims that are independent of offender change, specifically how it empowers victims. In two studies, we use a full experimental design to test the unique influence of punishment and offender change on victims' justice-related satisfaction and empowerment. In a third study, we extend the design and additionally test for the effects of assigned versus self-selected punishment. Across three studies (N = 824) with different methodological approaches, we consistently found that offender change alone increased victims' justice-related satisfaction-and this effect was not moderated by punishment. Study 2, but not Study 3, showed that punishment alone empowered victim-and this effect was not moderated by offender change. This indicates that offender change and punishment have independent roles in producing positive effects on victims. Overall, it was offender change and not punishment that made victims feel that justice has been done.

Genetic essentialist beliefs about criminality predict harshness of recommended punishment

Genetic essentialism is a set of beliefs holding that certain categories have a heritable, intrinsic, and biological basis. The current studies explore people's genetic essentialist beliefs about criminality, how such essentialism relates to beliefs about appropriate punishment, and the kinds of judgments and motivations that underlie these associations. Study 1 validated a novel task, in which respondents estimated how possible it would be for a child to inherit criminal behavior from a sperm donor with whom they had no contact. Studies 2-4 used this task to address how genetic essentialist beliefs related to the harmfulness of a crime and the harshness of recommended punishment. Results indicated a tendency to essentialize both low- and high-harm crimes, though genetic essentialism was higher for more harmful crimes. Moreover, genetic essentialist beliefs predicted recommendations for harsher punishments, with retributive and protective motivations, as well as perceptions of recidivism risk, partially mediating this association. Further, Studies 3 and 4 found that genetic essentialism positively predicted support for harsh punishments such as the death penalty, as well as support for directing financial resources more toward law enforcement and less toward social support. Lay theories about criminality may have profound implications for decisions about appropriate punishment for wrongdoers, as well as broader policy decisions about crime, punishment, and resource allocation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Trustors' disregard for trustees deciding quickly or slowly in three experiments with time constraints

Many decisions in the economic and social domain are made under time constraints, be it under time pressure or forced delay. Requiring individuals to decide quickly or slowly often elicit different responses. Time pressure has been associated with inefficiency in market settings and market regulation often requires individuals to delay their decisions via cooling-off periods. Yet, recent research suggests that people who make reflective decisions are met with distrust. If this extends to external time constraints, then forcing individuals to delay their decisions may be counterproductive in scenarios where trust considerations are important, such as in market and organizational design. In three Trust Game experiments (total number of participants = 1872), including within- and between-subjects designs, we test whether individuals trust (more) someone who is forced to respond quickly (intuitively) or slowly (reflectively). We find that trustors do not adjust their behavior (or their beliefs) to the trustee’s time conditions. This seems to be an appropriate response because time constraints do not affect trustees’ behavior, at least when the game decisions are binary (trust vs. don’t trust; reciprocate vs. don’t reciprocate) and therefore mistakes cannot explain choices. Thus, delayed decisions per se do not seem to elicit distrust.

Moral psychology from the lab to the wild: Relief registries as a paradigm for studying real-world altruism

Experimental psychology's recent shift toward low-effort, high-volume methods (e.g., self-reports, online studies) and away from the more effortful study of naturalistic behavior raises concerns about the ecological validity of findings from these fields, concerns that have become particularly apparent in the field of moral psychology. To help address these concerns, we introduce a method allowing researchers to investigate an important, widespread form of altruistic behavior-charitable donations-in a manner balancing competing concerns about internal validity, ecological validity, and ease of implementation: relief registries, which leverage existing online gift registry platforms to allow research subjects to choose among highly needed donation items to ship directly to charitable organizations. Here, we demonstrate the use of relief registries in two experiments exploring the ecological validity of the finding from our own research that people are more willing to help others after having imagined themselves doing so. In this way, we sought to provide a blueprint for researchers seeking to enhance the ecological validity of their own research in a narrow sense (i.e., by using the relief registry method we introduce) and in broader terms by adapting methods that take advantage of modern technology to directly impact others' lives outside the lab.

Examining Consequentialist Punishment Motives in One-Shot Social Dilemmas

Abstract. We investigated whether consequentialist motives may underlie punishment decisions in single-round (i.e., one-shot) social dilemmas in which there is no prospect of reciprocity. In particular, we used an incentivized public goods game to examine how the prospect of receiving information on the effect of punishment (i.e., information that indicates potential regret and intention for future behavioral change on the part of the transgressor) affects people’s punishment decisions. We also took person-situation interactions into account and studied whether prosocial individuals (i.e., persons high in Honesty-Humility and Social Value Orientation) punish more strongly when they receive consequentialist information. The data did neither reveal the hypothesized effects of information availability on punishment decisions nor were these effects conditional on dispositional prosociality. We discuss potential limitations of these findings as well as open questions for future research.

The Importance of Unfair Intentions and Outcome Inequality for Punishment by Third Parties and Victims

Abstract. Retributive theories predominantly focus on third party’s motives for punishment, which are rather affected by the offender’s malicious intentions than the actual outcome of the offense. However, victims experience an offense from a different perspective. The value/status approach argues that an offense has two facets that produce different threats: the intentional violation of values and status imbalance between offender and victims. We suggested that third parties and victims punish unfair intentions, whereas victims also punish because of the outcome inequality. In the present study, we orthogonally crossed the factors offender’s intention with the actual outcome and perspective of punisher (third-party versus victim). Results show that victims punish harsher than third parties. However, there are no qualitative differences of third-party punishment and punishment by victims. Rather, both punish malicious intentions and outcome inequality. We discuss how the findings relate to retributivism and other psychological theories of punishment.

Why Do We Punish?

Abstract. We investigated whether individuals’ punishment behavior aims at compensating for inflicted harm (i.e., retribution) or at deterring the offender from committing the offense again (i.e., deterrence) and whether punishment motives depend on the punishment system. Participants ( N = 149) assigned punishment for selfish decisions in a group resource allocation task under three conditions: Open punishment (the allocator is informed about the punishment, allowing for retribution and deterrence); hidden punishment (the allocator is not informed about the punishment, precluding deterrence); and unintentional offense (decision is made by the computer not the allocator, precluding retribution and deterrence). In line with retribution motives, participants assigned more punishment under hidden punishment compared to unintentional offense and open punishment. We found these differences in punishment between punishment conditions only under centralized punishment (i.e., punishment can only be executed by one group member), but not under decentralized punishment (i.e., each group member can punish).

Testing the Intuitive Retributivism Dual Process Model

Abstract. Research on the motives individuals have to punish criminal offenders suggests that punitive reactions are primarily driven by retributive, not utilitarian, motives. To explain this, several authors have suggested a dual process model (DPM) of punitive reactions. According to this model, punitive reactions are the product of two distinct types of processing (type I and type II), which differentially support retributive vs. utilitarian punishment motives. In response to cases of criminal wrongdoing, type I swiftly outputs a retributive reaction. In contrast, for utilitarian motives to play a role, this reaction has to be overridden by type II processing, which only happens rarely. In this article, we argue that despite its popularity, there is little concrete evidence for the DPM. We then report the results of a preregistered study investigating the effect of increased processing effort on retributive vs. utilitarian punitive reactions. We argue that the results fail to support the DPM.

A Painful Message

Abstract. This preregistered experiment examined two proximate drivers of retributive punishment attitudes: the motivation to make the perpetrator suffer, and understand the wrongfulness of his offense. In a sample of 514 US adults, we presented criminal case summaries that varied the level of suffering (absent vs. present) and understanding (absent vs. present) experienced by the perpetrator and measured punishment judgments and attitudes. Our results demonstrate, as predicted, that participants were more satisfied by the sentence and less punitive when they believed that the perpetrator had suffered from the punishment or that he understood the wrongfulness of his actions. This pattern held across crimes of varying seriousness (theft vs. aggravated robbery) and across two narrative perspectives (participant as victim vs. participant as third party). However, joint evidence of suffering and understanding did not strengthen this effect, contrary to predictions. We discuss the implications of these findings for leading philosophical theories of punishment.

Who May Punish How?

Abstract. According to the intuitive retributivism hypothesis, individuals favor retributivist (getting even) over consequentialist (prevention of norm transgressions) motives when asked to rate the appropriateness of punishment responses representing these motives. This hypothesis has rarely been tested in children; restorative motives (norm clarification, settlement) and potentially influencing variables have rarely been considered. We had 170 elementary school children ( M = 9.26, SD = 1.01) rate the appropriateness of six punishment responses by themselves and teachers for two types of norm transgression as well as their justice sensitivity. Children rated punishment responses thought to represent restorative motives as most appropriate, followed by special preventive and other retributive motives, revenge, general preventive motives, and doing nothing for both themselves and their teachers. Transgression type did not influence appropriateness ratings. Justice sensitivity was related to a stronger tendency to punish. Findings favor intuitive pacifism over intuitive retributivism, indicate children’s preference for target-specific, communicative punishment, and show only small influences by other variables.

What Motivates Direct and Indirect Punishment?

Abstract. Punishment represents a key mechanism to deter norm violations and is motivated by retribution and/or general deterrence. Retribution-motivated punishment is tailored to offense severity, whereas deterrence-motivated punishment is tailored to different factors, including punishment observability. This study aimed to replicate and extend prior work by testing how offense severity and punishment observability motivate direct, confrontational punishment versus indirect, covert punishment. Participants ( N = 308) read vignettes describing offenses with varying severity (high vs. low) and punishment observability (high vs. low). We then assessed their punishment tendencies – overall, direct, and indirect – and their endorsement of retribution and deterrence motives. Findings supported a “strong version” of intuitive retributivism. Manipulating retribution-relevant information consistently influenced punishment: participants reported stronger overall, direct, and indirect punishment tendencies when severity was high (vs. low). Self-reported deterrence (but not retribution) motives positively related to overall, direct, and indirect punishment tendencies. However, manipulating deterrence-relevant information did not influence punishment.

Justification of Sentencing Decisions: Development of a Ratio-Based Measure Tested on Child Neglect Cases

Theoretically, people's justification of a sentencing decision involves a hybrid structure comprising retribution, incapacitation, general deterrence, and rehabilitation. In this study, a new ratio-type measure was developed to assess this structure and was tested to detect changes in the weighting of justification according to the content emphasized in a particular crime. Two child neglect scenarios were presented to participants, where they read either a severe-damage scenario (where a single mother's selfish neglect caused her son's death) or a moderate-damage scenario (where a single mother became apathetic due to economic deprivation and caused her child's debilitation). Participants then indicated the proportion of importance they placed on each justification in determining the defendant's punishment, with an overall proportion of 100%, along with responding to the sentence on an 11-point scale. This study involved a two-factor analysis of variance for justification ratios, a t-test for the sentence, and a multiple regression analysis with three demographic variables, the four justifications as independent variables, and the sentence as the dependent variable. The ratio of retribution to rehabilitation was reversed depending on the scenario: in the severe-damage scenario, retribution was weighted highest at 27.0% and rehabilitation was weighted at only 19.0%. By contrast, in the moderate-damage scenario, rehabilitation had the highest weighting of about 26.2%, while retribution was weighted at 21.5%. The sentence was more severe in the severe-damage scenario. Multiple regression analysis suggested that in the severe-damage scenario, most participants failed to deviate from choosing retribution by default and decided on heavier sentences, while some who considered rehabilitation and incapacitation opted for lighter sentences. The present measure succeeded in detecting changes in the weighting of justification, which can be difficult to detect with common Likert Scales. In addition, it was found that not only retribution but utilitarian justification was considered in the sentencing decisions of serious cases.

Why punish critical outgroup commenters? Social identity, general norms, and retribution

Group members are more likely to punish criticism of the ingroup when it is provided by outgroup members than by fellow ingroup members. Although this effect could reflect a response to threats to social identity, there may be a general conversational norm proscribing intergroup criticism of any kind. In this case, uninvolved bystanders should also punish individuals who criticize other groups. Past studies of these effects have largely relied on self-reports, making it unclear which theoretical account best explains punishment behaviour. Additionally, the motives underlying punishment of intergroup criticism have not been systematically investigated. Punishment could be intended to inform the commenter that such criticism is inappropriate (i.e., a consequentialist motive) or simply enact revenge (i.e., a retributionist motive). We conducted a registered experiment (N > 800) to examine whether (1) uninvolved bystanders punish intergroup criticism as much as intergroup criticism of their own group, and (2) punishment of intergroup criticism is motivated by consequentialist or retributionist motives. Results revealed more negative reactions to and greater punishment of intergroup criticism compared to intragroup criticism. These effects were actually stronger when the participant was a bystander compared with a member of the targeted group. This finding strongly supports the existence of a conversational norm proscribing intergroup criticism. Protection of social identity resulted in more negative reactions to and punishment of any criticism targeting the ingroup, independent of the source. Finally, punishment extended to situations in which the commenter did not learn of the punishment, consistent with a retributionist motive.

A Behavioral Addiction Model of Revenge, Violence, and Gun Abuse

Data from multiple sources point to the desire for revenge in response to grievances or perceived injustices as a root cause of violence, including firearm violence. Neuroscience and behavioral studies are beginning to reveal that the desire for revenge in response to grievances activates the same neural reward-processing circuitry as that of substance addiction, suggesting that grievances trigger powerful cravings for revenge in anticipation of experiencing pleasure. Based on this evidence, the authors argue that a behavioral addiction framework may be appropriate for understanding and addressing violent behavior. Such an approach could yield significant benefits by leveraging scientific and public health-oriented drug abuse prevention and treatment strategies that target drug cravings to spur development of scientific and public-health-oriented "gun abuse" prevention and treatment strategies targeting the revenge cravings that lead to violence. An example of one such "motive control" strategy is discussed. Approaching revenge-seeking, violence, and gun abuse from the perspective of compulsion and addiction would have the added benefit of avoiding the stigmatization as violent of individuals with mental illness while also acknowledging the systemic, social, and cultural factors contributing to grievances that lead to violent acts.

Children punish third parties to satisfy both consequentialist and retributive motives

Adults punish moral transgressions to satisfy both retributive motives (such as wanting antisocial others to receive their 'just deserts') and consequentialist motives (such as teaching transgressors that their behaviour is inappropriate). Here, we investigated whether retributive and consequentialist motives for punishment are present in children approximately between the ages of five and seven. In two preregistered studies (N = 251), children were given the opportunity to punish a transgressor at a cost to themselves. Punishment either exclusively satisfied retributive motives by only inflicting harm on the transgressor, or additionally satisfied consequentialist motives by teaching the transgressor a lesson. We found that children punished when doing so satisfied only retributive motives, and punished considerably more when doing so also satisfied consequentialist motives. Together, these findings provide evidence for the presence of both retributive and consequentialist motives in young children.

The motivational basis of third-party punishment in children

People willingly accept personal costs to sanction norm violations even if they are not personally affected by the wrongdoing and even if their sanctioning yields no immediate benefits—a behavior known as third-party punishment. A notable body of literature suggests that this behavior is primarily driven by retribution (i.e., evening out the harm caused), rather than by the utilitarian motives of special prevention (i.e., preventing recidivism), or general prevention (i.e., preventing imitation). This has led to the conclusion that laypeople are “retributivists” in general. More recent evidence, however, raises doubts about the ubiquity of retributivism, showing that punishment is driven by multiple motives. The present research adds to this debate by investigating the motives underlying punishment in children around age 10. Specifically, we investigate children’s (N = 238) punishment motives in an economic game paradigm, isolating punishment motives by experimentally manipulating the extent to which the offender and a bystander learn about the punishment. This offers the possibility to examine whether (and to what extent) children engage in punishment even when it is devoid of any preventive effects. Results show that children’s punishment is motivated by retributive, special preventive, and general preventive purposes. These results point to a clear need for further theory specification on the motivational basis of punishment in humans and provide practical implications for the treatment of child misbehavior.

Does suffering suffice? An experimental assessment of desert retributivism

Michael S. Moore is among the most prominent normative theorists to argue that retributive justice, understood as the deserved suffering of offenders, justifies punishment. Moore claims that the principle of retributive justice is pervasively supported by our judgments of justice and sufficient to ground punishment. We offer an experimental assessment of these two claims, (1) the pervasiveness claim, according to which people are widely prone to endorse retributive judgments, and (2) the sufficiency claim, according to which no non-retributive principle is necessary for justifying punishment. We test these two claims in a survey and a related survey experiment in which we present participants (N = ~900) with the stylized description of a criminal case. Our results seem to invalidate claim (1) and provide mixed results concerning claim (2). We conclude that retributive justice theories which advance either of these two claims need to reassess their evidential support.

Punishment: one tool, many uses

Humans are outstanding in their ability to cooperate with unrelated individuals, and punishment - paying a cost to harm others - is thought to be a key supporting mechanism. According to this view, cooperators punish defectors, who respond by behaving more cooperatively in future interactions. However, a synthesis of the evidence from laboratory and real-world settings casts serious doubts on the assumption that the sole function of punishment is to convert cheating individuals into cooperators. Instead, punishment often prompts retaliation and punishment decisions frequently stem from competitive, rather than deterrent motives. Punishment decisions often reflect the desire to equalise or elevate payoffs relative to targets, rather than the desire to enact revenge for harm received or to deter cheats from reoffending in future. We therefore suggest that punishment also serves a competitive function, where what looks like spiteful behaviour actually allows punishers to equalise or elevate their own payoffs and/or status relative to targets independently of any change in the target's behaviour. Institutions that reduce or remove the possibility that punishers are motivated by relative payoff or status concerns might offer a way to harness these competitive motives and render punishment more effective at restoring cooperation.

Serotonin and aggressive behaviour in children and adolescents: a systematic review

OBJECTIVE

The role of serotonin (5-HT) in human aggression has been the subject of a large number of studies, mostly with adults. Meta-analyses indicate a small but significant inverse relationship between central nervous 5-HT availability and aggression, but genetically informed studies suggest two pathways: one to reactive aggression and the other to proactive aggression.

METHOD

We conducted a systemic review on central nervous 5-HT function in children and adolescents, with attention to the function of aggression.

RESULTS

In total, 675 articles were screened for relevance, with 45 reviewed. These included blood assays (e.g. plasma, 5-HIAA; platelet 5-HTR_2A ), epigenetic studies, retrospective PET studies and 5-HT challenge paradigms (e.g. tryptophan depletion). Overall, findings were mixed, with support both for negative and for positive associations of central nervous 5-HT function with aggression in children and adolescents.

CONCLUSION

We propose factors that may be blurring the picture, including problems in the conceptualization and measurement of aggression in young people, the lack of prospective designs and the bias towards clinical samples of boys. Research needs to account for variance in the both motivation for and implementation of aggression, and look to the behavioural economics literature to consider the roles of reward, vengeance and self-control more clearly.

Compensate a little, but punish a lot: Asymmetric routes to restoring justice

Most people have a desire to live in a just world, a place where good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. And yet, injustices do occur: good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people. Across four experiments, we show that people respond quite differently to correct these two types of injustices. When bad things happen to good people, individuals are eager to compensate a good person's losses, but only do so to a small degree. In contrast, when a good thing happens to a bad person, because the only perceived appropriate act of punishment is to fully strip the bad actor of all his or her illegitimate gains, few people choose to punish in this costly way. However, when they do, they do so to very large degrees. Moreover, we demonstrate that differential psychological mechanisms drive this asymmetry.

Sex differences in the effects of acute stress on behavior in the ultimatum game

Acute stress affects human decision making. It has been argued that there are systematic sex differences in behavioral responses to acute stress, with males showing a 'fight or flight' and females showing a 'tend and befriend' response. A 'tend and befriend' response would suggest that women become more cooperative under acute stress, while men do not. We investigated the effects of acute stress on social behavior. We induced stress via the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) and then immediately after measured how participants reacted to offers made in the ultimatum game by a male proposer. We found that female participants were less likely to reject offers under stress (n = 25) vs. no stress (n = 37), p = 0.009, independent of how fair these offers were, cooperative behavior consistent with the 'tend and befriend' hypothesis. Male participants when stressed (n = 30) did not show differences in rejections rates compared to the control condition (n = 26), p = 0.41. Our results provide support for a qualitatively different behavioral response to acute stress among men and women.

Cast into doubt: Free will and the justification for punishment

Criminal punishment is justified on either retributive or consequential grounds. The retributive justification is premised on a common-sense view of free will: offenders can freely choose to commit crimes and so deserve blame for their actions. The consequentialist justification, in contrast, is not necessarily premised on the free will concept, but rather justifies punishment when it is the most cost-effective way of preventing crime. Science elucidating the mechanistic causes of human behavior has thrown the notion of free will into doubt, leading some to predict a shift in public support away from retribution towards consequentialism. Past research shows that free will doubt weakens support for retribution, but less is known about its effects on support for consequentialism, or about whether these effects differ across the crime severity spectrum. In this study, we explore the effects of free will doubt on support for retribution and consequentialism in response to three different categories of crime - drug crime, property crime, and violent crime - which have been shown to evoke varying levels of emotion. We find clear inconsistencies across the crime spectrum. For high affect crime, free will doubt weakens support for retribution via blame, and increases support for consequentialism. For low affect crime, free will doubt weakens support for retribution to an even greater extent, yet also decreases support for consequentialism via blame. These findings suggest that, as science reveals the mechanistic causes of criminal behavior, support for criminal punishment will decrease, especially with respect to less serious crimes.

Psilocybin and MDMA reduce costly punishment in the Ultimatum Game

Disruptions in social decision-making are becoming evident in many psychiatric conditions. These are studied using paradigms investigating the psychological mechanisms underlying interpersonal interactions, such as the Ultimatum Game (UG). Rejection behaviour in the UG represents altruistic punishment – the costly punishment of norm violators – but the mechanisms underlying it require clarification. To investigate the psychopharmacology of UG behaviour, we carried out two studies with healthy participants, employing serotonergic agonists: psilocybin (open-label, within-participant design, N = 19) and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA; placebo-controlled, double-blind, crossover design, N = 20). We found that both MDMA and psilocybin reduced rejection of unfair offers (odds ratio: 0.57 and 0.42, respectively). The reduction in rejection rate following MDMA was associated with increased prosociality (R² = 0.26, p = 0.025). In the MDMA study, we investigated third-party decision-making and proposer behaviour. MDMA did not reduce rejection in the third-party condition, but produced an increase in the amount offered to others (Cohen’s d = 0.82). We argue that these compounds altered participants’ conceptualisation of ‘social reward’, placing more emphasis on the direct relationship with interacting partners. With these compounds showing efficacy in drug-assisted psychotherapy, these studies are an important step in the further characterisation of their psychological effects.

Are morally good actions ever free?

Research has shown that people ascribe more responsibility to morally bad actions than both morally good and neutral ones, suggesting that people do not attribute responsibility to morally good actions. The present work demonstrates that this is not so: People ascribe more free will to morally good than neutral actions (Studies 1a-1b, Mini Meta). Studies 2a-2b distinguished the underlying motives for ascribing freedom to morally good and bad actions. Free will ascriptions for immoral actions were driven predominantly by affective responses (i.e., punitive desires, moral outrage, and perceived severity of the crime). Free will judgments for morally good actions were similarly driven by affective responses (i.e., reward desires, moral uplift, and perceived generosity), but also more pragmatic considerations (perceived utility of reward, counternormativity of the action, and required willpower). Morally good actions may be more carefully considered, leading to generally weaker, but more contextually sensitive free will judgments.

Emotion-based learning systems and the development of morality

In this paper it is proposed that important components of moral development and moral judgment rely on two forms of emotional learning: stimulus-reinforcement and response-outcome learning. Data in support of this position will be primarily drawn from work with individuals with the developmental condition of psychopathy as well as fMRI studies with healthy individuals. Individuals with psychopathy show impairment on moral judgment tasks and a pronounced increased risk for instrumental antisocial behavior. It will be argued that these impairments are developmental consequences of impaired stimulus-aversive conditioning on the basis of distress cue reinforcers and response-outcome learning in individuals with this disorder.