How do we punish norm violators?
Wednesday, October 29, 2014 - 07:00
in Psychology & Sociology
An international team of researchers including Loukas Balafoutas (University of Innsbruck), Nikos Nikiforakis (NYU Abu Dhabi) and Bettina Rockenbach (University of Cologne) has conducted pioneering research on the question of how people punish strangers for norm violating behavior. In their article on direct and indirect punishment, which appeared in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), they were able to show that both forms of punishment play an important role in the field. If possible, however, people prefer to punish indirectly by refusing to help instead of directly confronting the norm violator. The researchers were also able to show that women are more often punished directly, men more often indirectly.