Altruistic punishment following social norm violations promotes human cooperation. However, experimental evidence indicates that some forms of punishment are spiteful rather than altruistic. Using two types of punishment games and seven non-strategic games, we identified strong behavioural differences between altruistic and spiteful punishers. Altruistic punishers who rejected unfair offers in the ultimatum game and punished norm violators in the third-party punishment game behaved pro-socially in various non-strategic games. Spiteful punishers who rejected unfair offers in the ultimatum game but did not punish norm violators in the third-party punishment game behaved selfishly in non-strategic games. In addition, the left caudate nucleus was larger in spiteful punishers than in altruistic punishers. These findings are in contrast to the previous assumption that altruistic punishers derive pleasure from enforcement of fairness norms, and suggest that spiteful punishers derive pleasure from seeing the target experience negative consequences.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
|---|---|
| http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5676782 | PMC |
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-15188-w | DOI Listing |
Publication Analysis
Top Keywords
Similar Publications
Investigating the effects of social information on spite in an online game.
Evol Hum Sci
April 2024
Durham Cultural Evolution Research Centre, Anthropology Department, Durham DH1 3LE, UK.
While humans are highly cooperative, they can also behave spitefully. Yet spite remains understudied. Spite can be normatively driven and while previous experiments have found some evidence that cooperation and punishment may spread via social learning, no experiments have considered the social transmission of spiteful behaviour.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIndividual differences in spite predict costly third-party punishment.
J Pers
December 2024
Department of Psychology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, USA.
Objective: Spiteful behaviors are those aimed at inflicting harm on another person while also incurring a cost to the self. Although spite sometimes reflects destructive and socially undesirable behaviors including aggression, the current work sought to examine a potentially socially beneficial aspect of spite: engagement in costly punishment for selfish behavior.
Method: Four studies used a costly third-party punishment task and measured individual differences in spite, narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and motivations for engaging in punishment.
Erratum: Electrophysiological markers of fairness and selfishness revealed by a combination of dictator and ultimatum games.
Front Syst Neurosci
March 2023
[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fnsys.2022.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA kin-selection model of fairness in heterogeneous populations.
J Theor Biol
May 2023
Department of Biology, Western University, 1151 Richmond Street, London, N6A 5B7, Ontario, Canada.
Humans and other primates exhibit pro-social preferences for fairness. These preferences are thought to be reinforced by strong reciprocity, a policy that rewards fair actors and punishes unfair ones. Theories of fairness based on strong reciprocity have been criticized for overlooking the importance of individual differences in socially heterogeneous populations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFElectrophysiological Markers of Fairness and Selfishness Revealed by a Combination of Dictator and Ultimatum Games.
Front Syst Neurosci
May 2022
NeuroHeuristic Research Group, HEC-Lausanne, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Individual behavior during financial decision making is motivated by fairness, but an unanswered question from previous studies is whether particular patterns of brain activity correspond to different profiles of fairness. Event Related Potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 39 participants who played the role of allocators in a Dictator Game (DG) and responders in an Ultimatum Game (UG). Two very homogeneous groups were formed by fair and selfish individuals.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWant AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?
Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!