道德声誉在第三方惩罚违规者行为认知中的作用

Third Party Punishment as a Signal of Moral Character

第三方惩罚是指第三方通过付出一定的代价惩罚违规者的现象。基于声誉解释取向的高成本信号理论认为此惩罚会被旁观者解读为积极信号,表明发出者具备良好的品质。维护道德声誉促使第三方做出惩罚行为,而无所作为则会被解读为消极信号,遭受负面道德评价压力。通过三个研究发现,旁观者认为第三方惩罚执行者比不作为者具有更高的道德水平,第三方的道德声誉会改变旁观者对其惩罚行为道德的推断。这些结果表明,道德声誉、负面道德评价压力是促使第三方惩罚行为出现的重要机制。

Third party punishment involves third parties punishing norm violators on behalf of victims.Costly signaling theory argues that bystanders translate third party punishment into good personal character of punishers,thus endorse good reputation for them,which makes third party punishers advantageous and attractive in the‘cooperation market’.We extend this point view by proposing that third party punishment is a moral behavior.This implies that third party punishers would obtain a good moral reputation,whereas third party non-punishers would suffer moral reputation loss for conniving norm violators.We found that:a)third party punishers were judged as morally superior to third party non-punishers and third parties from the control group,third parties from the control group were judged as morally superior to third party non-punishers;b)third party punishment had no effect on bystanders’competence judgement;c)morally superior third parties were judged to have higher levels of prosocial punishment.Taken together,the results indicate that the intrinsic desire for earning positive moral reputation and pressure of suffering negative moral reputation are both important mechanisms for the evolutionary configuration of third-party punishment.