What people learn from punishment: A cognitive model

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Radkani, Setayesh; Tenenbaum, Joshua B.; Saxe, Rebecca
• 署名单位: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
• 刊物名称: PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0027-14506
• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2500730122
• 发表日期: 2025-08-12
• 关键词: 3rd-party punishment; norm violation; costly signal; COOPERATION; legitimacy; trust; PERSPECTIVES; appropriate; EVOLUTION; SANCTIONS

摘要

Authorities, from parents of toddlers to leaders of formal institutions, use punishment to communicate disapproval and enforce social norms. Ideally, from whether and how severely a transgression is punished, targets and observers infer shared social norms. Yet in light of every punitive choice, observers also evaluate the motives and legitimacy of the authority. Here, we show that the effects of punishment can only be understood by considering these inferences simultaneously. We measured human observers' joint inferences empirically in three preregistered experiments (N = 1,254) and developed a rational Bayesian model using an inverse planning framework that captures and explains these inferences and their interactions quantitatively and parsimoniously. When people have different priors about norms or authorities, the model predicted and we experimentally confirmed that observing punishment by the authority can sustain polarization. This work reveals the rational logic behind how people learn from punishment and a key constraint on the function of punishment in establishing shared social norms. Significance Punishment can sometimes teach and enforce social norms, but other times backfires and undermines the authority's legitimacy. These seemingly contradictory effects of punishment can only be understood by considering the cognitive processes in the minds of human observers of punishment. In online experiments, we measured what people learn from observing punishment. We built a formal cognitive model that precisely captures and explains these inferences. Our results show that polarized interpretations of punishment arise rationally from the cognitive mechanism by which people make sense of each other's actions. Our work illuminates a central tension faced by any authority, from institutional leaders to parents of toddlers: How to communicate social norms to some people without losing legitimacy in the eyes of others.