TY - JOUR
T1 - Social norms and cultural diversity in the development of third-party punishment
AU - House, Bailey R.
AU - Kanngiesser, Patricia
AU - Clark Barrett, H.
AU - Yilmaz, Süheyla
AU - Smith, Andrew Marcus
AU - Sebastian-Enesco, Carla
AU - Erut, Alejandro
AU - Silk, Joan B.
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was funded by the John Templeton Foundation (grant no. 48952) and the Volkswagen Foundation (grant no. 89611).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.
PY - 2020/4/29
Y1 - 2020/4/29
N2 - Human cooperation is probably supported by our tendency to punish selfishness in others. Social norms play an important role in motivating third-party punishment (TPP), and also in explaining societal differences in prosocial behaviour. However, there has been little work directly linking social norms to the development of TPP across societies. In this study, we explored the impact of normative information on the development of TPP in 603 children aged 4–14, across six diverse societies. Children began to perform TPP during middle childhood, and the developmental trajectories of this behaviour were similar across societies. We also found that social norms began to influence the likelihood of performing TPP during middle childhood in some of these societies. Norms specifying the punishment of selfishness were generally more influential than norms specifying the punishment of prosocial behaviour. These findings support the view that TPP of selfishness is important in all societies, and its development is shaped by a shared psychology for responding to normative information. Yet, the results also highlight the important role that children’s prior knowledge of local norms may play in explaining societal variation in the development of both TPP and prosociality.
AB - Human cooperation is probably supported by our tendency to punish selfishness in others. Social norms play an important role in motivating third-party punishment (TPP), and also in explaining societal differences in prosocial behaviour. However, there has been little work directly linking social norms to the development of TPP across societies. In this study, we explored the impact of normative information on the development of TPP in 603 children aged 4–14, across six diverse societies. Children began to perform TPP during middle childhood, and the developmental trajectories of this behaviour were similar across societies. We also found that social norms began to influence the likelihood of performing TPP during middle childhood in some of these societies. Norms specifying the punishment of selfishness were generally more influential than norms specifying the punishment of prosocial behaviour. These findings support the view that TPP of selfishness is important in all societies, and its development is shaped by a shared psychology for responding to normative information. Yet, the results also highlight the important role that children’s prior knowledge of local norms may play in explaining societal variation in the development of both TPP and prosociality.
KW - Altruistic punishment
KW - Antisocial punishment
KW - Cross-cultural
KW - Prosocial behaviour
KW - Social norm
KW - Third-party punishment
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U2 - 10.1098/rspb.2019.2794
DO - 10.1098/rspb.2019.2794
M3 - Article
C2 - 32315587
AN - SCOPUS:85083872256
VL - 287
JO - Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
JF - Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
SN - 0800-4622
IS - 1925
M1 - 20192794
ER -