Third-party punishment following observed social rejection.

Abstract

Humans routinely punish others for violating social norms. This behavior is referred to as third-party punishment. Much of the research on this topic has been done in the context of group cooperation and unjust economic interactions. However, little is known about punishment in response to other types of more personal transgressions. In the present study, we sought to determine whether adults would punish an individual after viewing them undeservingly reject a stranger. We experimentally demonstrate that after observing an individual socially reject an unknown victim, individuals will engage in third-party punishment. Individuals who reported feeling upset with the rejecter were most likely to punish, while feeling sorry for the victim was not predictive of punishment behavior. These findings highlight the motivational role of empathic anger in punishing social norm transgressors. Notably, individuals who reported having been bullied in their own pasts were the most likely to punish the rejecter. These results demonstrate how a history of being bullied may make one more attuned to the social rejection of others and in turn may make one more likely to take retributive action on behalf of another.

Coronashaming: interpersonal affect worsening in contexts of COVID-19 rule violations

“…This agreement with having stricter rules enforced was positively linked to empathy towards victims of COVID-19 across the three studies. This is not surprising given that empathy has been linked to moral behaviour (Decey & Cowell, 2014) and higher punishment rates when being a third-party observer of norm transgressions (Dimitroff et al, 2020;Gummerum et al, 2016). Notably, the enforcement of stricter rules was also linked to wanting to induce more shame in the perpetrators.…”

“…In fact, empathy has been extensively linked to moral behaviour (Decety & Cowell, 2014), leading people to have a negative regard for those actions that harm others (Prinz, 2011). Furthermore, third parties engaged in higher punishment of norm transgressions when induced to empathic emotions (e.g., Dimitroff et al, 2020;Gummerum et al, 2016;Leliveld et al, 2012). Hence, empathy may act as a powerful driver to direct people's efforts to worsen others' emotions and to increase their motivation to comply with and impose (stricter) rules.…”

Increased empathic distress in adults with experience of childhood trauma

“…While many studies investigated the effect of previous experience (e.g. rape (Barnett et al, 1987), social rejection (Dimitroff et al, 2019), loss of a pet (Eklund, Andersson-Straberg, & Hansen, 2009)), relatively little work has been done on more generalized trauma, like early life adversity (ELA). ELA refers to extreme and/or chronic stress in childhood (Pechtel & Pizzagalli, 2011), and is experienced in varying degrees by individuals.…”

The sensitivity of third party punishment to the framing effect and its brain mechanism

“…It is made available under a preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in The copyright holder for this this version posted January 11, 2021. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.01.11.426181 doi: bioRxiv preprint 6 / 36 appropriate punishment are both largely based on emotional reactions (Buckholtz et al, 2008). According to the literature, third-party punishment is mainly driven by: (1) empathic feelings to (potential) victims (Dimitroff et al, 2020;Hechler & Kessler, 2018), and (2) moral outrage to norm violators (Nelissen & Zeelenberg, 2009;Salerno & Peter-Hagene, 2013;Treadway et al, 2014). At the brain level, previous studies have shown that empathizing with other's suffering engages the bilateral insula, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and mid-cingulate cortex (MCC) (Fan et al, 2011;Lamm et al, 2011), while moral outrage toward wrongdoing engages the amygdala, hippocampus, cingulate cortex, and basal ganglia (Fumagalli & Priori, 2012).…”