Children's Third-Party Punishment Behaviour: The Roles of Deterrent Motives, Affective States and Moral Domains

Children engage in third-party punishment (3PP) from a young age in response to harm and fairness violations. However, several areas about children’s 3PP are still un-investigated: their motivations for engaging in 3PP; the emotional consequences of enacting 3PP; and the effect of moral domains on 3PP. In order to explore these topics, I developed two computerised paradigms: the MegaAttack game and the Minecraft Justice System. The former was used with 5- to 11-year-olds in the UK (Experiments 1-2) and Colombia (Experiment 3); the latter with British, Colombian and Italian 7- to 11-year-olds (Experiment 4). In both paradigms, as players violated different types of moral norms, children were asked to judge their behaviour and offered the opportunity to punish them. Additionally, in the Minecraft paradigm children could also compensate the victims. The type of transgression children watched did not fully predict their choice of 3PP type in terms of moral domains (Experiments 1-2), but significantly affected their severity and endorsement of 3PP (Experiment 4). Children did not appear motivated by reputational concerns, as their 3PP severity was not influenced by an audience, operationalised as cues of observation (Experiment 2) or accountability (Experiment 3). Children’s enjoyment of 3PP was generally low, although there were differences across countries (Experiments 2-3). In Experiment 4 children enjoyed compensating more than punishing. When asked whether they endorsed deterrence or retribution as their 3PP motive, children overwhelmingly chose deterrence, irrespective of their country, age and framing manipulation received. Reported deterrent motives, and lack of 3PP enjoyment or preference for compensation, together suggest that children, differently from adults, are not motivated by the retributive desire to see wrongdoers suffer. Results have implications for theoretical accounts of the cognitive and affective processes involved in 3PP, methodological implications for future research avenues and, potentially, practical implications for the development of intervention studies.

Grantor dc:publisher

Oxford Brookes University

Year dc:date

2020

Author dc:creator

• Arini, Rhea Luana

Contributors dc:contributor

• Kenward, Ben
• Wiggs, Luci

Statement dc:rights

• All rights reserved

Language dc:language

en

DOI dc:identifier

https://doi.org/10.24384/10sr-g298

OAI identifier oai:identifier

tle:3b7e9fd2-7f15-4ba0-84af-1c293c006fbf:d6bd9758-527a-46cd-bfe2-c433766e8fca:1