Audience effects on moralistic punishment

Kurzban, Robert; DeScioli, Peter; O’Brien, Erin M.

doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2006.06.001

Cited by 319 publications

(237 citation statements)

References 42 publications

(28 reference statements)

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“…Whereas pathogen disgust motivates proximal avoidance of perceived infection risks, and sexual disgust motivates avoidance of individuals within the specific context of sexual interactions, moral disgust motivates avoidance of social relationships with norm-violating individuals. As recent research indicates, moral disgust might also underlie motivations to punish norm-violating third parties (e.g., Kurzban, DeScioli, & O'Brien, 2007).…”

Section: Moral Disgustmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microbes, mating, and morality: Individual differences in three functional domains of disgust.

Tybur¹,

Lieberman²,

Griskevicius³

2009

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

955

1,184

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What is the function of disgust? Whereas traditional models have suggested that disgust serves to protect the self or neutralize reminders of our animal nature, an evolutionary perspective suggests that disgust functions to solve 3 qualitatively different adaptive problems related to pathogen avoidance, mate choice, and social interaction. The authors investigated this 3-domain model of disgust across 4 studies and examined how sensitivity to these functional domains relates to individual differences in other psychological constructs. Consistent with their predictions, factor analyses demonstrated that disgust sensitivity partitions into domains related to pathogens, sexuality, and morality. Further, sensitivity to the 3 domains showed predictable differentiation based on sex, perceived vulnerability to disease, psychopathic tendencies, and Big 5 personality traits. In exploring these 3 domains of disgust, the authors introduce a new measure of disgust sensitivity. Appreciation of the functional heterogeneity of disgust has important implications for research on individual differences in disgust sensitivity, emotion, clinical impairments, and neuroscience.

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Section: Moral Disgustmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microbes, mating, and morality: Individual differences in three functional domains of disgust.

Tybur¹,

Lieberman²,

Griskevicius³

2009

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

955

1,184

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…It has also been suggested that even though the tests are done anonymously with single encounters, people may still act as though they are being observed and gaining a reputation as someone to not be trifled with (e.g. Johnstone & Bshary 2004;Barclay 2006;Kurzban et al 2007). These alternate explanations are difficult to rule out, even in controlled experimental situations.…”

Section: Gros-louis 2004)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Punishment and spite, the dark side of cooperation

Jensen

2010

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

173

167

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Causing harm to others would hardly seem to be relevant to cooperation, other than as a barrier to it. However, because selfish individuals will exploit cooperators, functional punishment is an effective mechanism for enforcing cooperation by deterring free-riding. Although functional punishment can shape the social behaviour of others by targeting non-cooperative behaviour, it can also intimidate others into doing almost anything. Second-party functional punishment is a self-serving behaviour at the disposal of dominant individuals who can coerce others into behaving cooperatively, but it need not do so. Third-party and altruistic functional punishment are less likely to be selfishly motivated and would seem more likely to maintain norms of cooperation in large groups. These forms of functional punishment may be an essential part of non-kin cooperation on a scale exhibited only by humans. While punitive sentiments might be the psychological force behind punitive behaviours, spiteful motives might also play an important role. Furthermore, functionally spiteful acts might not be maladaptive; reckoning gains relative to others rather than in absolute terms can lead to hyper-competitiveness, which might also be an important part of human cooperation, rather than just an ugly by-product.

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“…It is well known that subjects tend to behave in a more egoistic manner under guaranteed anonymity, whereas less anonymous situations increase prosocial behaviors (e.g., giving some benefit to others, adhering to a public standard or to social norms) (2). Prosocial behaviors can be elicited not only by the presence of real observers (3)(4)(5) but also by surprisingly subtle cues associated with being watched by others (6,7), pointing to the powerfully automatic nature of reputationbased processing. Although altruistic behaviors toward nonkin may be present even in nonhuman primates (8), it is likely that only human altruistic behavior is affected by the presence of an independent third party (9).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Insensitivity to social reputation in autism

Izuma

Matsumoto

Camerer

et al. 2011

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

211

164

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People act more prosocially when they know they are watched by others, an everyday observation borne out by studies from behavioral economics, social psychology, and cognitive neuroscience. This effect is thought to be mediated by the incentive to improve one's social reputation, a specific and possibly uniquely human motivation that depends on our ability to represent what other people think of us. Here we tested the hypothesis that social reputation effects are selectively impaired in autism, a developmental disorder characterized in part by impairments in reciprocal social interactions but whose underlying cognitive causes remain elusive. When asked to make real charitable donations in the presence or absence of an observer, matched healthy controls donated significantly more in the observer's presence than absence, replicating prior work. By contrast, people with high-functioning autism were not influenced by the presence of an observer at all in this task. However, both groups performed significantly better on a continuous performance task in the presence of an observer, suggesting intact general social facilitation in autism. The results argue that people with autism lack the ability to take into consideration what others think of them and provide further support for specialized neural systems mediating the effects of social reputation.Asperger syndrome | audience effect | dictator game C oncern for our own reputation affects how we behave in social situations. Our actions are strongly influenced by our belief that they may be seen and evaluated by others. Not only do people care about their reputation, but they also often try to manipulate what other people think of them through self-presentation or impression management (1), topics with a long history in social psychology. It is well known that subjects tend to behave in a more egoistic manner under guaranteed anonymity, whereas less anonymous situations increase prosocial behaviors (e.g., giving some benefit to others, adhering to a public standard or to social norms) (2). Prosocial behaviors can be elicited not only by the presence of real observers (3-5) but also by surprisingly subtle cues associated with being watched by others (6, 7), pointing to the powerfully automatic nature of reputationbased processing. Although altruistic behaviors toward nonkin may be present even in nonhuman primates (8), it is likely that only human altruistic behavior is affected by the presence of an independent third party (9). Representing our reputation involves thinking about what others think of us and thus requires some level of metarepresentation (10). The link between prosocial behaviors and reputation is also emphasized by theoretical and empirical considerations of how altruism might have evolved through indirect reciprocity (11,12). Thus, reputation may be a unique and important aspect of our species that incentivizes self-interested individuals to conform to social norms.Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are a class of neurodevelopmental disorders with an estim...

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Audience effects on moralistic punishment

Cited by 319 publications

References 42 publications

Microbes, mating, and morality: Individual differences in three functional domains of disgust.

Microbes, mating, and morality: Individual differences in three functional domains of disgust.

Punishment and spite, the dark side of cooperation

Insensitivity to social reputation in autism

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