人情与公正的抉择:社会距离对第三方干预的影响

第三方干预(third-party intervention)是一种重要的利他行为,它包括惩罚和补偿两种措施。本研究结合情境性问卷与实验法,采用修改后的独裁者博弈范式(Dictator Game,DG),让被试作为第三方对朋友或者陌生人的不公平行为进行干预,考察社会距离对第三方干预的影响。研究发现:(1)对于朋友提出的不公平方案,个体对其的惩罚轻于陌生人,而对第二方(无权者)的补偿没有显著差异。(2)个体对朋友的不公平提议的公平性判断高于陌生人,但提议引发的情绪体验没有显著差异。上述结果表明,社会距离可能通过影响个体对不公平行为的公平感知,进而影响其第三方干预行为。     

第三方惩罚的神经机制：来自经颅直流电刺激的证据

第三方惩罚既是社会规范在群体得以维系的基石, 也是个体维护社会规范的体现。当前关注社会规范的神经研究大多基于第二方惩罚的独裁者或最后通牒实验框架, 缺乏对第三方维护社会规范过程中相关脑区活动的探索, 对这一过程的内在神经机制也不清楚。本文基于第三方惩罚的独裁者博弈框架, 对右侧背外侧前额叶区域(DLPFC)进行不同极性的经颅直流电刺激(tDCS), 同时依据第三方是否需要为其惩罚付出成本设计了零成本和有成本两个实验任务。结果发现, 第三方在零成本任务的情绪反应和惩罚显著受到tDCS设置的影响, 且阴极刺激显著提升了第三方的惩罚值, 这表明情绪机制对第三方惩罚有着重要影响。另外, 第三方在零成本和有成本任务中的惩罚差异在不同tDCS设置之间也存在显著差异, 这与第三方惩罚还受到自利机制影响的观点相符。本文率先为右侧DLPFC活动影响第三方惩罚提供了神经层面的证据, 且支持了第三方对社会规范的遵从与其负性情绪反应和自利加工密切相关的机制解释。     

The Selfish Side of Self‐Control

Self‐control is a powerful tool that promotes goal pursuit by helping individuals curb personal desires, follow norms, and adopt rational thinking. In interdependent social contexts, the socially acceptable (i.e. normative) and rational approach to secure long‐term goals is prosocial behaviour. Consistent with that, much research associates self‐control with prosociality. The present research demonstrates that when norm salience is reduced (i.e. social relations are no longer interdependent), high self‐control leads to more selfish behaviour when it is economically rational. In three studies, participants were asked to allocate an endowment between themselves and another person (one‐round, zero‐sum version of the dictator game), facing a conflict between a socially normative and an economically rational approach. Across the studies, norm salience was manipulated [through manipulation of social context (private/public; Studies 1 and 2), measurement of social desirability (Studies 1 and 3), and measurement (Study 2) and manipulation (Study 3) of social power] such that some participants experienced low normative pressure. Findings showed that among individuals in a low normative pressure context, self‐control led to economically rational, yet selfish, behaviour. The findings highlight the role of self‐control in regulating behaviour so as to maximize situational adaptation. Copyright © 2014 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Fairness‐related behaviour modulation by friendship is moderated by American primes in Chinese participants

Empirical studies from the fields of psychology and behavioural economics indicate that people do not like being treated unfairly and may punish those who violate the norm, even at a cost to themselves. Recent research has emphasized the relationship effect on fairness‐related behaviour but has shown conflicting results and has not focused much on the characteristics of culture. This study used the cultural priming paradigm and the Ultimatum Game (UG) to explore whether cultural primes could moderate the relationship effect on fairness‐related decision making. We primed Chinese participants with either Chinese cultural symbols or American cultural symbols and asked them to play as responders with friends or strangers in the two‐party UG (experiment 1) or in the three‐party UG (experiment 2). Results from the two experiments confirm that Chinese participants accepted unfair offers more often when the offers were made by friends than when the offers were made by strangers. However, the relationship effect was diminished after American cultural priming. These results suggest that American primes can moderate the relationship effect on fairness‐related behaviour in Chinese people. This finding may shed new light on the likelihood of exiting from the heavy reliance on social relationships in Chinese society.     

Self-punishment promotes reconciliation with third parties by addressing the symbolic implications of wrongdoing

Self-punishment is a highly costly—and potentially harmful—way transgressors can respond to a wrongdoing. In this research, we propose that people might punish themselves in part because it has a communicative social function. Three studies using hypothetical vignettes showed that self-punishment facilitates reconciliation with third party observers by addressing the symbolic implications of wrongdoing. Specifically, self-punishment establishes a moral value consensus and/or diminishes offender status/power, and through this, increases third party perceptions of justice and transgressor remorse, and the third party's willingness to reconcile. This effect was robust to manipulations designed to make third parties question the sincerity of the self-punisher's intention. Self-punishment thus serves a beneficial interpersonal function by repairing social bonds between transgressors and their peers.     

Retribution and forgiveness: The healing effects of punishing for just deserts

Although punishment and forgiveness frequently are considered to be opposites, in the present paper we propose that victims who punish their offender are subsequently more likely to forgive. Notably, punishment means that victims get justice (i.e. just deserts), which facilitates forgiveness. Study 1 reveals that participants were more likely to forgive a friend's negligence after being primed with punishment than after being primed with inability to punish. In Study 2, participants were more forgiving towards a criminal offender if the offender was punished by a judge than if the offender escaped punishment, a finding that was mediated by the just deserts motive. Study 3 was in the context of actual recalled ongoing interpersonal relations and revealed that punishment predicted forgiveness indirectly via just deserts, not via victims' vengeful motivations. It is concluded that punishment facilitates forgiveness because of its capacity to restore a sense of justice. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Changing Parties,Changing Partisans: The Personalization of Partisan Attachments in Western Europe

This article investigates the effects of the deep transformations in the relationship between West European class‐mass parties and their electorates. Particular attention is paid to the changing nature of individuals' partisan attachments, which are hypothesized to be less rooted in social and ideological identities and more in individual attitudes towards increasingly visible partisan objects. The main objective of this article is to examine the influence of voters' attitudes towards one of these “objects”—the party leaders—in determining psychological attachments with the parties. The analysis concentrates on the two main cleavage‐based parties in Britain, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. The empirical findings highlight the declining ability of social identities (class and religious) to predict individual feelings of partisan attachment, as well as the growing influence of voters' attitudes towards party leaders. The concluding section points to the crucial role that political psychology can play in our understanding of democratic elections' outcomes.     

HUMAN RESPONDING ON RANDOM‐INTERVAL SCHEDULES OF RESPONSE‐COST PUNISHMENT: THE ROLE OF REDUCED REINFORCEMENT DENSITY

An experiment with adult humans investigated the effects of response‐contingent money loss (response‐cost punishment) on monetary‐reinforced responding. A yoked‐control procedure was used to separate the effects on responding of the response‐cost contingency from the effects of reduced reinforcement density. Eight adults pressed buttons for money on a three‐component multiple reinforcement schedule. During baseline, responding in all components produced money gains according to a random‐interval 20‐s schedule. During punishment conditions, responding during the punishment component conjointly produced money losses according to a random‐interval schedule. The value of the response‐cost schedule was manipulated across conditions to systematically evaluate the effects on responding of response‐cost frequency. Participants were assigned to one of two yoked‐control conditions. For participants in the Yoked Punishment group, during punishment conditions money losses were delivered in the yoked component response independently at the same intervals that money losses were produced in the punishment component. For participants in the Yoked Reinforcement group, responding in the yoked component produced the same net earnings as produced in the punishment component. In 6 of 8 participants, contingent response cost selectively decreased response rates in the punishment component and the magnitude of the decrease was directly related to the punishment schedule value. Under punishment conditions, for participants in the Yoked Punishment group response rates in the yoked component also decreased, but the decrease was less than that observed in the punishment component, whereas for participants in the Yoked Reinforcement group response rates in the yoked component remained similar to rates in the no‐punishment component. These results provide further evidence that contingent response cost functions similarly to noxious punishers in that it appears to suppress responding apart from its effects on reinforcement density.     

Righteous or self‐righteous anger? Justice sensitivity moderates defensive outrage at a third‐party harm‐doer

While bystanders' outrage over moral transgressions may represent a genuine desire to restore justice, such expressions can also be self‐serving—alleviating guilt and bolstering one's moral status. Four studies examined whether individual differences in observer justice sensitivity (JS_O) moderate the degree to which outrage at third‐party harm‐doing reflects concerns about one's own moral identity rather than justice per se. Among participants low (vs. high) in JS_O, feelings of guilt predicted greater outrage and desire to punish a corporation's sweatshop labor practices (Studies 1 & 2). Furthermore, affirming one's personal moral identity reduced outrage and support for punishing a corporate harm‐doer among those low, but not high in JS_O (Studies 3 & 4). Similar moderation was absent for other forms of justice sensitivity and just world beliefs. Effects were not explained by negative affect, empathy, personal harm, or political orientation. Results suggest that JS_O uniquely differentiates defensive and justice‐driven moral outrage (150/150).     

The interplay between feedback-related negativity and individual differences in altruistic punishment: An EEG study

To date, the interplay betwexen neurophysiological and individual difference factors in altruistic punishment has been little understood. To examine this issue, 45 individuals participated in a Dictator Game with punishment option while the feedback-related negativity (FRN) was derived from the electroencephalogram (EEG). Unlike previous EEG studies on the Dictator Game, we introduced a third party condition to study the effect of fairness norm violations in addition to employing a first person perspective. For the first time, we also examined the role of individual differences, specifically fairness concerns, positive/negative affectivity, and altruism/empathy as well as recipients’ financial situation during altruistic punishment. The main results show that FRN amplitudes were more pronounced for unfair than for fair assignments in both the first person and third party perspectives. These findings suggest that FRN amplitudes are sensitive to fairness norm violations and play a crucial role in the recipients’ evaluation of dictator assignments. With respect to individual difference factors, recipients’ current financial situation affected the FRN fairness effect in the first person perspective, indicating that when being directly affected by the assignments, more affluent participants experienced stronger violations of expectations in altruistic punishment decisions. Regarding individual differences in trait empathy, in the third party condition FRN amplitudes were more pronounced for those who scored lower in empathy. This may suggest empathy as another motive in third party punishment. Independent of the perspective taken, higher positive affect was associated with more punishment behavior, suggesting that positive emotions may play an important role in restoring violated fairness norms.     

儿童道德义愤的发展及其对第三方公正行为的影响

为了探讨儿童道德义愤的发展及其对第三方公正行为的影响，实验1考察106名幼儿园大班、小学2年级和4年级儿童的道德义愤在年级以及数目和价值不公平分配上的差异；实验2考察57名小学儿童在有无代价条件下，其道德义愤对第三方公正行为的影响。结果表明：儿童的道德义愤呈现随年级增长而不断增强的趋势；儿童由数目不公平分配引发的道德义愤得分显著高于价值不公平分配；幼儿园大班和2年级儿童在数目不公平分配中的道德义愤得分均显著高于价值不公平分配，而4年级儿童在数目和价值不公平分配中的道德义愤得分不存在显著差异；诱发道德义愤的儿童更多地做出第三方公正行为，并且更愿意选择补偿受害者；在不同诱发道德义愤条件下，是否需要付出代价都不会影响儿童的第三方公正行为。研究说明儿童的道德义愤随年级增长而发展，并影响第三方公正行为。     

Self-serving biases and public justifications in trust games

Often, when several norms are present and may be in conflict, individuals will display a self-serving bias, privileging the norm that best serves their interests. Xiao and Bicchieri (J Econ Psychol 31(3):456–470, 2010) tested the effects of inequality on reciprocating behavior in trust games and showed that—when inequality increases—reciprocity loses its appeal. They hypothesized that self-serving biases in choosing to privilege a particular social norm occur when the choice of that norm is publicly justifiable as reasonable, even if not optimal for one of the parties. In line with the literature on motivated reasoning, this justification should find some degree of support among third parties. The results of our experimental survey of third parties support the hypothesis that biases are not always unilateral selfish assessments. Instead, they occur when the choice to favor a particular norm is supported by a shared sense that it is a reasonable and justifiable choice.     

A little help from our friends: Informal third parties and interpersonal conflict

Individuals who have been hurt by an interpersonal transgression often turn to others for support, but very little is known about the function of these informal third parties. In this study, a qualitative approach was used to analyze victims' written narratives describing a transgression in order to better understand what role informal third parties may play. The range of responses that informal third parties made to victims, and how victims felt, both about the transgressor and in general, was examined. Those who forgave the transgressor tended to receive different types of informal third‐party responses than those who did not forgive, and informal third parties seemed to help victims feel better by reducing their uncertainty and increasing their sense of belongingness.     

Third Parties and the Social Scaffolding of Forgiveness

It is widely accepted that only the victim of a wrong can forgive that wrong. Several philosophers have recently defended “third‐party forgiveness,” the scenario in which A, who is not the victim of a wrong in any sense, forgives B for a wrong B did to C. Focusing on Glen Pettigrove's argument for third‐party forgiveness, I will defend the victim's unique standing to forgive, by appealing to the fact that in forgiving, victims must absorb severe and inescapable costs of distinctive kinds, a plight that third parties do not share. There are, nonetheless, significant, even essential, roles played by third parties in making forgiveness possible, reasonable, or valuable for victims of serious wrongs. I take a closer look at the links between victims, wrongdoers, resentment, and forgiveness in showing why the victim alone can forgive.     

Barriers to forgiveness

Society generally encourages individuals to forgive their transgressors because forgiveness can yield many psychological, physiological, and social benefits (Exline & Baumeister, 2000 ). Nevertheless, victims face barriers to forgiving others, and other people face obstacles that prevent them from encouraging victims to forgive. We aim to provide insight into the various barriers that deter forgiveness by examining the role of the various parties involved—victims, transgressors, and uninvolved third parties—in creating barriers to forgiveness. We contend that beliefs held by these various parties significantly reduce the likelihood that victims will forgive their transgressors. By identifying how these beliefs impede forgiveness, we can begin to understand more fully why convincing victims to forgive is often a challenge. In our discussion, we also suggest ways by which victims, transgressors, and third parties can overcome these barriers to forgiveness.     

Payback: Effects of relationship and cultural norms on reciprocity

This experimental investigation explores differences in reciprocal norms between friends and strangers and the effects of culture on reciprocity. Based on altruistic and strong reciprocity theories, a hybrid trust‐dictator game tested the influence of relationship (i.e. friends vs. strangers), treatment (i.e. positive vs. negative) and culture (i.e. collectivistic vs. individualistic) on reciprocation. The results show that participants reciprocated more positively when treated positively in general. However, the results demonstrate intercultural differences in reciprocal norms, specifically in the negative treatment condition. Participants from the individualistic culture provided stronger punishment to the norm violator, compared to participants from the collectivistic culture. We discuss implications of the impact of relationship and culture on reciprocation with respect to the olive branch response.     

Responsibility: The tie that binds

People share significantly more money with others in common lab paradigms like the dictator game than they do in real life. What accounts for this difference? Paradigms like the dictator game link each recipient to a single dictator with the implication that each recipient can receive funds from only one person. We argue that this “burden” of responsibility to a single recipient helps to explain high levels of laboratory sharing. In two experiments—a modified dictator game experiment and a charitable giving experiment—participants donated significantly more to others when they were solely responsible for a recipient's outcome than when the responsibility for a recipient was potentially shared. Taken together with past findings from social psychology and experimental economics, the results show how unambiguous responsibility for a single recipient increases generosity.     

学龄儿童的规范理解与利他惩罚的关系：从描述性到指令性倾向

研究通过有第三方的信任博弈考察6～11岁中国儿童的规范理解与利他惩罚之间的关系。结果发现：（1）6～11岁儿童对描述性规范的理解如果达到成人理解的标准,就更有可能做出利他惩罚;（2）不同规范理解与利他惩罚的关系受到年龄的调节作用,即在6～8岁儿童中,描述性规范理解可预测利他惩罚;而在9～11岁儿童中,指令性规范理解可预测利他惩罚。这提示学龄儿童的规范理解与利他惩罚之间关系的形成过程可能存在从描述性向指令性的转变倾向,与社会规范的习得过程和形成过程或有共通之处。     

群体偏好与年级对小学生利他惩罚行为的影响

采用独裁者博弈（DG）探讨了群体偏好对不同年级小学生利他惩罚行为的影响。研究1对450名小学生利他惩罚行为的年级发展特点进行了测查。研究2以168名小学生为被试,考察了在独裁者博弈中与独裁者的关系、性别与年级对小学生（第三方）利他惩罚行为的影响。研究3以180名小学生为被试,考察了在独裁者博弈中与接受者的关系、性别与年级对小学生（第三方）利他惩罚行为的影响。结果发现：（1）利他惩罚行为在1至3年级之间有显著增长,3至5年级之间不仅没有增加反而有所下降。（2）3年级小学生开始表现出明显的群体偏好。（3）利他惩罚行为的性别差异不明显,与女生比男生更利他的预期相左。结论：小学生至少在6岁就已经出现了利他惩罚行为且逐渐表现出群体偏好;小学生道德行为发展中可能存在“3年级现象”;女生可能更愿意通过非惩罚的方式达成公平。     

主观社会阶层正向预测利他性惩罚

利他性惩罚是指个体自行承担成本来惩罚违规者的行为, 它受到社会阶层的影响。研究1利用2013年中国综合社会调查数据发现阶层显著正向预测利他性惩罚。研究2 (N = 450)基于真实生活事件的调查表明, 惩罚成本调节了阶层对惩罚的影响：在成本较高的直接惩罚中, 阶层正向预测惩罚; 而在成本较低的间接惩罚中, 这种作用不再显著。研究3 (N = 232)通过操纵阶层与成本进一步证实惩罚成本的调节作用：高阶层者比低阶层者更有可能做出利他性惩罚, 但两者的差距在高成本条件下更突出。研究4 (N = 125)综合考察了阶层影响惩罚的心理机制, 多层线性分析显示：惩罚成本较低时, 阶层通过公正世界信念来间接影响惩罚, 而成本较高时, 阶层直接正向影响了惩罚。上述结果意味着利他性惩罚受到个体社会阶层的影响, 同时也在一定程度上说明在利他性惩罚中基于成本-收益的策略性考虑并非完全缺席。