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

Wylie, Jordan; Gantman, Ana P.

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105323

Cited by 10 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 125 publications

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“…We contrast codified rules with social norms exactly because the appropriate means for punishing codified rules and social norms are distinct-when people break official rules, we expect their punishment to come from the institution that codified the rule in the first place. When people violate a social norm, we expect that their punishment will come in the form of social sanctioning (e.g., Wylie & Gantman, 2023). This demonstrates one of the ways that codified are special.…”

Section: The Unique Power Of Codified Rulesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Phantom rules represent a subclass of codified rules in which a proscribed behavior and the descriptive norm associated with that behavior are in conflict. And while phantom rules are frequently broken and seen of little moral consequence (Wylie & Gantman, 2023), social norm information is salient, and it influences individuals' behavior (e.g., Asch, 1956;Miller & Prentice 1996;Schultz et al, 2007). On a narrow definition of social norm violations, they are not technically against any particular codified rule, but they tend to be costly interpersonally and can lead to indirect punishments such as gossip or ostracism (e.g., Molho et al, 2020).…”

Section: The Unique Power Of Codified Rulesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…On a narrow definition of social norm violations, they are not technically against any particular codified rule, but they tend to be costly interpersonally and can lead to indirect punishments such as gossip or ostracism (e.g., Molho et al, 2020). Yet, when faced with both a broken codified rule and a broken social norm, research suggests that people frequently choose to punish the codified one (in lieu of another option; Wylie & Gantman, 2023). That is, while the social norm violations may motivate the desire to punish and correct behavior, having a quick and easy tool to implement to satisfy that desire is often preferable.…”

Section: The Unique Power Of Codified Rulesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, small, hunter-gatherer societies that do not have states also don't tend to have these kinds of codified rules (or very much punishment at all; Baumard, 2010). Moving from a more ultimate perspective of rules as instruments of cooperation to their more proximate functions as codes of conduct: rules are also explicit directives which are designed to proscribe actions uniformly across individuals, irrespective of their status (Weber, 1921;Graeber, 2015;Hannikainen et al, 2021; see also Wylie & Gantman, 2023). This is an important component of procedural justice, which is the perception that the rules or processes by which those rules are enforced are done so fairly (Tyler & Lind, 1992;Tyler, 1997).…”

Section: The Role Of Institutions and Rules In Punishmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Cooperation, Domination: Twin Functions of Third-Party Punishment

Wylie,

Gantman

2024

Preprint

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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 through third-party punishments is often used to exert control and oppress out-group members. By challenging the understanding 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.

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Section: The Unique Power Of Codified Rulesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Unique Power Of Codified Rulesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Unique Power Of Codified Rulesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Role Of Institutions and Rules In Punishmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Cooperation, Domination: Twin Functions of Third-Party Punishment

Wylie,

Gantman

2024

Preprint

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“…Our focus was on the manipulation of the moral valence of the rule’s purpose, yet participants may have justifiably inferred differences in the agent’s moral character across conditions as well. Thus, whether counter-literal judgments were driven solely by moral evaluations of the rule’s purpose (as suggested by Hart & Sacks, 1994) or by a more comprehensive appraisal of the incident (as observed by LaCosse & Quintanilla, 2021; Wylie & Gantman, 2023) remains unclear. To shed light on the question, in Study 2, we held the purposes’ moral valence constant, describing a benevolent rule in every case, and extraneously manipulated the protagonist’s moral blameworthiness.…”

Section: Study 2: Good Versus Evil Agentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moral appraisals guide intuitive legal determinations.

Flanagan¹,

Almeida²,

Struchiner³

et al. 2023

Law and Human Behavior

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Objectives: We sought to understand how basic competencies in moral reasoning influence the application of private, institutional, and legal rules. Hypotheses: We predicted that moral appraisals, implicating both outcome-based and mental state reasoning, would shape participants’ interpretation of rules and statutes—and asked whether these effects arise differentially under intuitive and reflective reasoning conditions. Method: In six vignette-based experiments (total N = 2,473; 293 university law students [67% women; age bracket mode: 18–22 years] and 2,180 online workers [60% women; mean age = 31.9 years]), participants considered a wide range of written rules and laws and determined whether a protagonist had violated the rule in question. We manipulated morally relevant aspects of each incident—including the valence of the rule’s purpose (Study 1) and of the outcomes that ensued (Studies 2 and 3), as well as the protagonist’s accompanying mental state (Studies 5 and 6). In two studies, we simultaneously varied whether participants decided under time pressure or following a forced delay (Studies 4 and 6). Results: Moral appraisals of the rule’s purpose, the agent’s extraneous blameworthiness, and the agent’s epistemic state impacted legal determinations and helped to explain participants’ departure from rules’ literal interpretation. Counter-literal verdicts were stronger under time pressure and were weakened by the opportunity to reflect. Conclusions: Under intuitive reasoning conditions, legal determinations draw on core competencies in moral cognition, such as outcome-based and mental state reasoning. In turn, cognitive reflection dampens these effects on statutory interpretation, allowing text to play a more influential role.

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Justice before Expediency: Robust Intuitive Concern for Rights Protection in Criminalization Decisions

Bystranowski

Hannikainen

2023

Rev.Phil.Psych.

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The notion that a false positive (false conviction) is worse than a false negative (false acquittal) is a deep-seated commitment in the theory of criminal law. Its most illustrious formulation, the so-called Blackstone’s ratio, affirms that “it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer”. Are people’s evaluations of criminal statutes consitent with this tenet of the Western legal tradition? To answer this question, we conducted three experiments (total N = 2492) investigating how people reason about a particular class of offenses—proxy crimes—known to vary in their specificity and sensitivity in predicting actual crime. By manipulating the extent to which proxy crimes convict the innocent and acquit those guilty of a target offense, we uncovered evidence that attitudes toward proxy criminalization depend primarily on its propensity toward false positives, with false negatives exerting a substantially weaker effect. This tendency arose across multiple experimental conditions—whether we matched the rates of false positives and false negatives or their frequencies, whether information was presented visually or numerically, and whether decisions were made under time pressure or after a forced delay—and was unrelated to participants’ probability literacy or their professed views on the purpose of criminal punishment. Despite the observed inattentiveness to false negatives, when asked to justify their decisions, participants retrospectively supported their judgments by highlighting the proxy crime’s efficacy (or inefficacy) in combating crime. These results reveal a striking inconsistency: people favor criminal policies that protect the rights of the innocent, but report comparable concern for their expediency in fighting crime.

show abstract

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

Cited by 10 publications

References 125 publications

Cooperation, Domination: Twin Functions of Third-Party Punishment

Cooperation, Domination: Twin Functions of Third-Party Punishment

Moral appraisals guide intuitive legal determinations.

Justice before Expediency: Robust Intuitive Concern for Rights Protection in Criminalization Decisions

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