Does dishonesty really invite third-party punishment? Results of a more stringent test.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Konishi N
PROVIDER: S-EPMC4455743 | biostudies-literature | 2015 May
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Punishment can help maintain cooperation by deterring free-riding and cheating. Of particular importance in large-scale human societies is third-party punishment in which individuals punish a transgressor or norm violator even when they themselves are not affected. Nonhuman primates and other animals aggress against conspecifics with some regularity, but it is unclear whether this is ever aimed at punishing others for noncooperation, and whether third-party punishment occurs at all. Here we report an experimental study in which one of humans' closest living relatives, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), could punish an individual who stole food. Dominants retaliated when their own food was stolen, but they did not punish when the food of third-parties was stolen, even when the victim was related to them. Third-party punishment as a means of enforcing cooperation, as humans do, might therefore be a derived trait in the human lineage.
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Project description:Punishment aims to deter individuals' selfish behaviors, but it can occasionally backfire. Some scholars have proposed promoting prosocial behaviors using punishment that communicates positive social norms because it provides additional motivation. However, it is unclear which factors affect the norm expressive function of punishment. This study proposes that third-party punishment communicates more positive normative information, and thus, promotes more prosocial behavior in observers than does second-party punishment. Using dictator games, we investigated the effects of second-party punishment compared to third-party punishment of another's unfair sharing on observers' norm perceptions and subsequent sharing decision-making. Two experiments consistently found that third-party punishment was more effective than second-party punishment at inducing observers' beliefs that unfair distribution was unusual (descriptive norm) and unacceptable (injunctive norm). The altered descriptive but not injunctive norm perception further guided individuals' own sharing behaviors. Taken together, these results suggest that third-party punishment might be better than second-party punishment at decreasing selfish behaviors by shaping individuals' norm perceptions, especially descriptive norm perception, regarding the relevant behaviors.
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Project description:UNLABELLED:The evolved capacity for third-party punishment is considered crucial to the emergence and maintenance of elaborate human social organization and is central to the modern provision of fairness and justice within society. Although it is well established that the mental state of the offender and the severity of the harm he caused are the two primary predictors of punishment decisions, the precise cognitive and brain mechanisms by which these distinct components are evaluated and integrated into a punishment decision are poorly understood. Using fMRI, here we implement a novel experimental design to functionally dissociate the mechanisms underlying evaluation, integration, and decision that were conflated in previous studies of third-party punishment. Behaviorally, the punishment decision is primarily defined by a superadditive interaction between harm and mental state, with subjects weighing the interaction factor more than the single factors of harm and mental state. On a neural level, evaluation of harms engaged brain areas associated with affective and somatosensory processing, whereas mental state evaluation primarily recruited circuitry involved in mentalization. Harm and mental state evaluations are integrated in medial prefrontal and posterior cingulate structures, with the amygdala acting as a pivotal hub of the interaction between harm and mental state. This integrated information is used by the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex at the time of the decision to assign an appropriate punishment through a distributed coding system. Together, these findings provide a blueprint of the brain mechanisms by which neutral third parties render punishment decisions. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT:Punishment undergirds large-scale cooperation and helps dispense criminal justice. Yet it is currently unknown precisely how people assess the mental states of offenders, evaluate the harms they caused, and integrate those two components into a single punishment decision. Using a new design, we isolated these three processes, identifying the distinct brain systems and activities that enable each. Additional findings suggest that the amygdala plays a crucial role in mediating the interaction of mental state and harm information, whereas the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex plays a crucial, final-stage role, both in integrating mental state and harm information and in selecting a suitable punishment amount. These findings deepen our understanding of how punishment decisions are made, which may someday help to improve them.
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Project description:Prosocial third-party punishment (3PP) is a punitive behavior against antisocial individuals, which might explain extended cooperativeness in humans. 3PP shows sexual dimorphism, being more frequent in men than in women. We studied whether sexually dimorphic features related to sexual hormones during development (facial dimorphism and 2D:4D) influence the tendency to engage in 3PP in a sample of 511 women and 328 men. After playing a Prisoner's Dilemma, participants had to decide whether to penalize the defection of a third player who had exploited his/her counterpart's cooperation. In line with previous studies, we observe that men are more prone to engage in 3PP than women. We find that this sex difference is due to cooperative men being more likely to punish than cooperative women. In addition, men with higher facial masculinity are less likely to engage in 3PP, whereas no features influence 3PP in women. We discuss the possibility that sex differences in the motivations and fitness implications underlying 3PP might be driving the observed results.
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Project description:This research aims to explore the neural correlates involved in altruistic punishment, parochial altruism and anti-social punishment, using the Third-Party Punishment (TPP) game. In particular, this study considered these punishment behaviors in in-group vs. out-group game settings, to compare how people behave with members of their own national group and with members of another national group. The results showed that participants act altruistically to protect in-group members. This study indicates that norm violation in in-group (but not in out-group) settings results in increased activity in the medial prefrontal cortex and temporo-parietal junction, brain regions involved in the mentalizing network, as the third-party attempts to understand or justify in-group members' behavior. Finally, exploratory analysis during anti-social punishment behavior showed brain activation recruitment of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, an area associated with altered regulation of emotions.
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Project description:The act of punishing unfair behavior by unaffected observers (i.e., third-party punishment) is a crucial factor in the functioning of human societies. In everyday life, we see different types of individuals who punish. While some individuals initiate costly punishment against an unfair person independently of what other observers do (independent punishers), others condition their punishment engagement on the presence of another person who punishes (conditional punishers). Still others do not want to partake in any sort of punishment (nonpunishers). Although these distinct behavioral types have a divergent impact on human society, the sources of heterogeneity are poorly understood. We present novel laboratory evidence on the existence of these three types. We use anatomical brain characteristics in combination with stated motives to characterize these types. Findings revealed that independent punishers have larger gray matter volume in the right temporo-parietal junction compared to conditional punishers and nonpunishers, an area involved in social cognition. Conditional punishers are characterized by larger gray matter volume in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a brain area known to be involved in behavioral control and strategic reasoning, compared to independent punishers and nonpunishers. Finally, both independent punishers and nonpunishers are characterized by larger gray matter volume in an area involved in the processing of social and monetary rewards, that is, the bilateral caudate. By using a neural trait approach, we were able to differentiate these three types clearly based on their neural signatures, allowing us to shed light on the underlying psychological mechanisms.
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Project description:Compassion is a particular form of empathic reaction to harm that befalls others and is accompanied by a desire to alleviate their suffering. This altruistic behavior is often manifested through altruistic punishment, wherein individuals penalize a deprecated human's actions, even if they are directed toward strangers. By adopting a dual approach, we provide empirical evidence that compassion is a multifaceted prosocial behavior and can predict altruistic punishment. In particular, in this multiple-brain connectivity study in an EEG hyperscanning setting, compassion was examined during real-time social interactions in a third-party punishment (TPP) experiment. We observed that specific connectivity patterns were linked to behavioral and psychological intra- and interpersonal factors. Thus, our results suggest that an ecological approach based on simultaneous dual-scanning and multiple-brain connectivity is suitable for analyzing complex social phenomena.
| S-EPMC5931604 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Third-party fairness maintenance could win some reputational benefits, and it includes two methods: punishment and compensation. We predicted that the third parties' preference between punishment and compensation are affected by whether they are free to choose between the two methods, and the affection could be interpreted through reputational benefits. The present study includes two sections. In Study 1, the participants acted as fourth parties who were asked to rate the reputations of the third parties who had chosen different response methods to an unfair result of the dictator game. The results showed that (1) there was no reputational difference between the two methods when third parties were not free to choose, (2) but the reputation of compensation was better when third parties were free to choose. In Study 2, the participants acted as third parties. The participants were asked to choose a method to respond to an unfair result of the dictator game. There were two reputational contexts: secret and open. The results showed that (1) when third parties were not free to choose, they had no preference between the two methods under the two reputational contexts, (2) but when third parties were free to choose freely, they prefer punishment under the secret context but prefer compensation under the open context. This study systematically reveals a reputational interaction between fourth and third parties, and verifies the affection of reputational benefits on the third parties' preference between punishment and compensation.
| S-EPMC8211016 | biostudies-literature
Project description: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.
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Project description:The ability to survive within a cooperative society depends on impartial third-party punishment (TPP) of social norm violations. Two cognitive mechanisms have been postulated as necessary for the successful completion of TPP: evaluation of legal responsibility and selection of a suitable punishment given the magnitude of the crime. Converging neuroimaging research suggests two supporting domain-general networks; a mentalizing network for evaluation of legal responsibility and a central-executive network for determination of punishment. A whole-brain voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping approach was used in conjunction with a rank-order TPP task to identify brain regions necessary for TPP in a large sample of patients with penetrating traumatic brain injury. Patients who demonstrated atypical TPP had specific lesions in core regions of the mentalizing (dorsomedial prefrontal cortex [PFC], ventromedial PFC) and central-executive (bilateral dorsolateral PFC, right intraparietal sulcus) networks. Altruism and executive functioning (concept formation skills) were significant predictors of TPP: altruism was uniquely associated with TPP in patients with lesions in right dorsolateral PFC and executive functioning was uniquely associated with TPP in individuals with lesions in left PFC. Our findings contribute to the extant literature to support underlying neural networks associated with TPP, with specific brain-behavior causal relationships confirming recent functional neuroimaging research.
| S-EPMC4733334 | biostudies-literature