Children’s Evaluations of Third-party Punishment and Compensation

• In Event: 2-141 - How do Children Intervene Against Moral Transgressions?: The Development of Third-party Interventions in Childhood

Integrative Statement

Adults are willing to punish unfair individuals at a personal cost, even if they are not affected by the transgression. Such costly third-party punishment is an important mechanism to police norm-violations and sustain cooperation (Fehr & Gächter, 2002). However, there is another way to restore justice: compensation of victims. Research shows that adults prefer compensators who gave resources to victims over those who punish unfair individuals (Raihani & Bshary, 2015).

Children start to engage in costly third-party punishment around 6 years of age (McAuliffe et al., 2015), but no study has systematically tested how they think about compensation as an alternative form of intervention.

Across three studies, we tested children’s evaluations of third-party punishers and compensators. Children at 5 to 9 years (N=80 in each study) heard a story in which a divider distributes candies selfishly between the self and a recipient. Then, a third-party punisher takes candies from the unfair divider, whereas a third-party compensator gives candies to the victim. We measured (1) children’s liking for each third-party in a Likert scale and (2) their forced-choice preference.

Study 1 showed that children rated both third parties positively (t-test, ps<.001, Fig.2) and preferred the compensator over the punisher when forced to choose between them across three scenarios (binomial test, p<.001). This preference for compensators became stronger with age (b=.03, p<.05).

Study 2 examined whether children actually assessed others’ interventions against unfairness or generally like individuals who give (as the compensators did) more than individuals who take things away (as the punishers did). In a Giving condition, a rational compensator gave candies to the victim and an irrational compensator gave candies to the unfair divider. In the Taking condition, a rational punisher took away candies from the unfair divider and an irrational punisher took away candy from the victim. Across Giving and Taking conditions, children preferred rational agents who decreased inequality over irrational parties who increased it (Fig.3, β=1.16, p<.01), a preference that increased with age (β=-1.60, p<.001). This shows that children did not respond merely to giving vs. taking, but considered the justifiability of interventions.

Study 3 tested whether children think differently about the acts of compensation and punishment vs. the individuals performing these acts. Children might be more endorsing of punishment as an act of justice than the individuals willing to perform such a mildly aggressive act. We found a dissociation in evaluations between intervenors and interventions emerge with age (β=-.05, p<.05, Fig.4) with older children evaluating punishment and compensation equally, but still preferring compensators over punishers.

These studies show that, similar to adults, children prefer compensators over punishers. However, children seem to have mixed feelings towards punishers in that they endorse punishment as a way to restore justice but are reluctant to choose punishers potentially due to their perceived aggression. We discuss the current research in terms of punishment as a double-edged sword.

Authors

• Young-eun Lee, University of Michigan
  Presenting Author

• Felix Warneken, University of Michigan
  Non-Presenting Author