Abstract
Across societies, humans punish norm violations. To date, research on the antecedents and consequences of punishment has largely relied upon agent-based modeling and laboratory experiments. Here, we report a longitudinal study documenting punishment responses to norm violations in daily life (k = 1507; N = 257) and test pre-registered hypotheses about the antecedents of direct punishment (i.e., confrontation) and indirect punishment (i.e., gossip and social exclusion). We find that people use confrontation versus gossip in a context-sensitive manner. Confrontation is more likely when punishers have been personally victimized, have more power, and value offenders more. Gossip is more likely when norm violations are severe and when punishers have less power, value offenders less, and experience disgust. Findings reveal a complex punishment psychology that weighs the benefits of adjusting others’ behavior against the risks of retaliation.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 3432 |
| Pages (from-to) | 1-9 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Nature Communications |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Early online date | 9 Jul 2020 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Dec 2020 |
Funding
The authors thank Junhui Wu and members of the Amsterdam Cooperation Lab for valuable suggestions on the manuscript. We thank Tim Alkemade, Margriet Bentvelzen, Marloes Doeswijk, Terence Dores Cruz, Maaike Homan, and Sterre van Niekerken for translations of study materials. C.M. acknowledges IAST funding from the French National Research Agency (ANR) under grant ANR-17-EURE-0010 (Investissements d’Avenir program). C.M. and D.B. were supported by a European Research Council grant (ERC StG-2014-635356). J.M.T. was also supported by the ERC (ERC StG-2015-680002-HBIS).
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| ERC StG-2015-680002-HBIS | |
| French National Research Agency | ANR-17-EURE-0010 |
| European Research Council | ERC StG-2014-635356 |
| Horizon 2020 Framework Programme | 680002 |
