Amount of altruistic punishment accounts for subsequent emotional gratification in participants with primary psychopathy

We are often willing to incur personal costs in order to punish people that violate group norms. Previous studies have suggested that high-psychopathy participants may engage in more such “altruistic punishment behaviors” than those with lower levels of psychopathy. Although this finding could suggest that psychopathy is in fact associated with prosocial behavior, high-psychopathy participants show clear evidence of various decision-making and emotional deficits. It is therefore possible that the increased altruistic punishment behavior observed in psychopathy participants is in some fashion related to such deficits. To address this possibility, we administered the altruistic punishment paradigm to a group of university students with low and high levels of psychopathy (N = 50). We found that high-psychopathy participants (n = 24) gave defectors significantly more punishment than did low psychopathy participants (n = 26), under personally costly conditions. Furthermore, a mediational analysis revealed that the amount of altruistic punishment administered completely mediated the relationship between primary psychopathy and a person’s emotional gratification subsequent to performing the altruistic punishment behavior. These findings suggest that while high psychopathy participants do appear to engage in greater levels of altruistic punishment behavior, they may do this largely for their own emotional gratification.     

大学生共情对利他行为的影响:一个有调节的中介模型

探究大学生共情、幸福感和神经质对利他行为的影响,为促进大学生利他行为提供依据。采用方便取样,选取辽宁省某高校选修课程学生273名,完成中文版人际反应指针量表、神经质人格问卷、幸福感指数量表和大学生利他行为问卷。结果显示:(1) 神经质在共情和利他行为之间起着部分中介作用,也就是说,共情既对利他行为产生直接影响,也通过神经质间接地影响着利他行为;(2) 幸福感是神经质部分中介共情和利他行为关系的调节变量。幸福感调节的是中介作用的后半路径,即共情通过神经质对利他行为的间接效应受到幸福感的调节。具体的说,相对于低幸福感的大学生,间接效应对于高幸福感的大学生更加显著。因此,共情对利他行为的影响是有调节的中介效应。研究结论对增强大学生利他行为有重要的理论价值和实践指导价值。     

When do people cooperate? The neuroeconomics of prosocial decision making

Understanding the roots of prosocial behavior is an interdisciplinary research endeavor that has generated an abundance of empirical data across many disciplines. This review integrates research findings from different fields into a novel theoretical framework that can account for when prosocial behavior is likely to occur. Specifically, we propose that the motivation to cooperate (or not), generated by the reward system in the brain (extending from the striatum to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex), is modulated by two neural networks: a cognitive control system (centered on the lateral prefrontal cortex) that processes extrinsic cooperative incentives, and/or a social cognition system (including the temporo-parietal junction, the medial prefrontal cortex and the amygdala) that processes trust and/or threat signals. The independent modulatory influence of incentives and trust on the decision to cooperate is substantiated by a growing body of neuroimaging data and reconciles the apparent paradox between economic versus social rationality in the literature, suggesting that we are in fact wired for both. Furthermore, the theoretical framework can account for substantial behavioral heterogeneity in prosocial behavior. Based on the existing data, we postulate that self-regarding individuals (who are more likely to adopt an economically rational strategy) are more responsive to extrinsic cooperative incentives and therefore rely relatively more on cognitive control to make (un)cooperative decisions, whereas other-regarding individuals (who are more likely to adopt a socially rational strategy) are more sensitive to trust signals to avoid betrayal and recruit relatively more brain activity in the social cognition system. Several additional hypotheses with respect to the neural roots of social preferences are derived from the model and suggested for future research.     

第三方惩罚与社会规范激活——社会责任感与情绪的作用

社会规范需要被激活才能显著影响个体行为,第三方惩罚（TP）正是这样一个激活的过程。本研究将TP引入独裁者博弈（DG）,社会规范被激活的被试参与了TP与DG,未激活的被试只参与了DG。结果表明,前者在TP之后显著提升了DG中的亲社会行为。进一步的分析发现,在社会规范激活过程中,社会责任感越高的个体被激活的程度越高,对违背社会规范的行为产生的愤怒情绪也越高,从而产生了更高水平的亲社会行为。在排除了实验中其他因素和相关理论的解释后,这一基本的实验结果表明社会规范激活受到社会责任感的影响并伴随着特定情绪的激发。     

The Behavioral Logic of Collective Action: Partisans Cooperate and Punish More Than Nonpartisans

Laboratory experiments indicate that many people willingly contribute to public goods and punish free riders at a personal cost. We hypothesize that these individuals, called strong reciprocators, allow political parties to overcome collective action problems, thereby allowing those organizations to compete for scarce resources and to produce public goods for like‐minded individuals. Using a series of laboratory games, we examine whether partisans contribute to public goods and punish free riders at a greater rate than nonpartisans. The results show that partisans are more likely than nonpartisans to contribute to public goods and to engage in costly punishment. Given the broad theoretical literature on altruistic punishment and group selection as well as our own formal evolutionary model, we hypothesize that it is being a partisan that makes an individual more likely to be a strong reciprocator and not vice versa.     

Ceding and Succeeding: How the Altruistic Can Benefit from the Selfish in Joint Decisions

We examine how the interplay of two partners’ interpersonal orientations (selfish vs. altruistic) in a decision‐making dyad impacts the extent to which the joint decision matches each partners’ individual a priori preferences. Two experiments, in which we manipulate and measure interpersonal orientations, as well as examine real consumption decisions, demonstrate the benefit of mismatching interpersonal orientations (selfish‐altruistic) in dyadic decisions. Specifically, altruistic and selfish consumers reach joint decisions that better reflect their individual preferences when working with a partner who has the opposite interpersonal orientation (heterogeneous dyad) versus a matching one (homogeneous dyad). Initial evidence suggests that this effect occurs because homogeneous dyads are more prone to engage in negotiation (communication that involves departure from one's initial position to a mutually serving position) than heterogeneous dyads. This leads homogeneous dyads to focus more on equally preferred options than on their own most preferred options, which pushes them further down both partners’ preferences lists. This research contributes to the literature on joint decision making and has important implications for consumer well‐being.