Making sense of punishment: Transgressors' interpretation of punishment motives determines the effects of sanctions

Punishment is expected to have an educative, behaviour-controlling effect on the transgressor. Yet, this effect often remains unattained. Here, we test the hypothesis that transgressors' inferences about punisher motives crucially shape transgressors' post-punishment attitudes and behaviour. As such, we give primacy to the social and relational dimensions of punishment in explicating how sanctions affect outcomes. Across four studies using different methodologies (N = 1189), our findings suggest that (a) communicating punishment respectfully increases transgressor perceptions that the punisher is trying to repair the relationship between the transgressor and their group (relationship-oriented motive) and reduces perceptions of harm-oriented and self-serving motives, and that (b) attributing punishment to relationship-oriented (vs. harm/self-oriented, or even victim-oriented) motives increases prosocial attitudes and behaviour. This research consolidates and extends various theoretical perspectives on interactions in justice settings, providing suggestions for how best to deliver sanctions to transgressors

Communicative Function of Self-Punishment

Self-punishment, the adverse treatment of the self as a response to own wrongdoing, seems dysfunctional on first sight. However, it may have interpersonal benefits, as it may affect how others perceive the offender. We argue that self-punishment communicates the offender’s reaffirmation of the violated values as well as their own status degradation. Consequently, observers may attribute more remorse to the offender who self-punish, which in turn may increase their willingness to reconcile with the offender. Four studies conducted in the US and Germany (Ns = 285, 609, 648 and 603) tested these predicted processes experimentally by crossing self-punishment with an explicit message of either value restoration or status degradation from the offender. We employed a measurement-of-process as well as a moderation-of-process approach to investigate the processes underlying the attribution of remorse. The results consistently showed that, in the absence of an explicit message, self-punishment increased third parties’ attribution of remorse to the offender, but not (or less so) when offenders issued either explicit message. Both explicit messages increased remorse attributions, but this was not further enhanced by self-punishment. This pattern of redundancy implies that self-punishment and messages of value restoration and status degradation are interchangeable in their effects on remorse perceptions. These findings indicate that self-punishment communicates value reaffirmation and status degradation, and through these mechanisms increases remorse perceptions that are linked to third parties’ willingness to reconcile with the offender. The findings provide experimental evidence for a communicative function of self-punishment that may facilitate the restoration of jeopardized relationships