惩恶还是扶弱:7~10岁儿童第三方惩罚的动机

Punishing perpetrators or compensating victims:The third-party punishment motivation of children aged 7–10

作为维持社会公平规范的利他性行为,第三方惩罚在儿童的社会交往中普遍存在,但其背后的动机究竟是惩罚违规者还是帮扶受害者,仍有待进一步厘清.本研究借鉴第三方惩罚的独裁者博弈范式设计了两个实验,实验一(N=109)探查了7~10岁儿童在有利不公平条件下第三方惩罚行为的动机及其年龄发展特征,实验二(N=122)进一步明晰在不利不公平情境下儿童第三方惩罚动机的表现.结果发现,多数7~10岁儿童在面对不公平分配时都愿意付出代价,做出维护公平公正的第三方惩罚行为,且背后动机多指向帮助性的扶弱动机.此外,7~9岁儿童第三方惩罚动机的发展轨迹受不公平类型的影响表现出两种模式,而9岁后发展轨迹趋于一致,即惩恶动机逐渐显现增多,与扶弱动机并存.

Third-party punishment refers to paying the price for punishing unrelated violations.As an altruistic behavior aimed at maintaining the social fairness norm,third-party punishment is widespread in children's social interactions.There are two types of motivations for third-party punishment.One is punishing the perpetrators(retribution),which means a third-party individual punishes the perpetrators to increase their possibility of complying with the norms in the future.The other motivation is compensating the victims(restoration),which means a third-party individual compensates the victims hoping that the victims can get justice.But it remains to be further clarified whether the primary motivation is to punish perpetrators(retribution) or to compensate victims(restoration) in children's third-party punishment.Through two experiments based on the dictator game paradigm,we discuss costly third-party punishment motivations among Chinese children aged 7–10 and further clarify the patterns of age changes.The subjects decided whether to intervene in the distribution results after learning about the distribution results(equal or unequal) between the distributor and the receiver as a third-party bystander.There were three intervention methods for the subjects to choose:Acceptance,punishment,or compensation,among which punishment and compensation both required the subjects to pay the price.The first experiment(N=109) explores the motivations and age development trends of third-party punishment behavior in children aged 7–10 under advantageous inequity conditions.It found that children predominantly display the motivation to compensate the victims.Under advantageous inequity conditions(4-0),the proportion of choosing punishment shows an upward trend,and the proportion of choosing compensation has an inflection point at the age of 9.Among people choosing compensation,the proportion of children aged 7–9 shows a downward trend,while the proportion of children aged 9–10shows an upward trend.The second experiment(N=122) further explores the performance of children's third-party punishment motivations under disadvantageous inequity conditions to verify the robustness of the results of the first experiment.According to the results,the third-party punishment motivations of children remain unchanged,showing the primary motivation to compensate the victims.Under disadvantageous inequity conditions(0-4),the proportion of both punished and compensated individuals shows an inflection point at age 9,with the proportion of punished individuals showing a downward trend at age 7–9 and an upward trend at age 9–10,and the proportion of compensated individuals shows an upward trend at age 7–9 and remains stable at age 9–10.According to the results of experiment 1 and experiment 2,most children aged 7–10 are willing to accept third-party punishment to maintain fairness and justice when facing unfair distribution,even if they need to sacrifice their own rewards.And the motivation behind this behavior is mostly a restorative one,aimed at compensating the victims.In addition,the developmental track of the third-party punishment motivation in children aged 7–9 shows two patterns due to the influence of inequity types,while the developmental track after the age of 9 tends to be consistent;that is,the retribution motivation gradually increases,coexisting with the motivation to compensate the victims.Overall,our results enrich the literature on children's third-party punishment motivations and the patterns of age changes while also expanding our knowledge of the function of third-party punishment in humans.