Comparing Teachers' and Students' Perspectives on the Treatment of Student Misbehavior

The treatment of student misbehavior is both a major challenge for teachers and a potential source of students' perceptions of injustice in school. By implication, it is vital to understand teachers' treatment of student misbehavior vis-a-vis students' perceptions. One key dimension of punishment behavior reflects the underlying motives and goals of the punishment. In the present research, we investigated the perspectives of both teachers and students concerning the purposes of punishment. Specifically, we were interested in the extent to which teachers and students show preferences for either retribution (i.e., evening out the harm caused), special prevention (i.e., preventing recidivism of the offender), or general prevention (i.e., preventing imitation of others) as punishment goals. Therefore, teachers (N = 260) and school students around the age of 10 (N = 238) were provided with a scenario depicting a specific student misbehavior. Participants were asked to indicate their endorsement of the three goals as well as to evaluate different punishment practices that were perceived (in pretests) to primarily achieve one specific goal but not the other two. Results show that teachers largely prefer general prevention, whereas students rather prefer special prevention and retribution. This discrepancy was particularly large in participants' evaluation of specific punishment practices, whereas differences between teachers' and students' direct endorsement of punishment goals were relatively small. Overall, the present research may contribute to the development of classroom intervention strategies that reduce conflicts in student-teacher-interactions

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

Is It All About Retribution? The Flexibility of Punishment Goals

Current literature suggests that laypeople’s punishment is primarily driven by retributive reasons (i.e., to give offender their just deserts) rather than utilitarian purposes such as special prevention (i.e., to prevent recidivism of the offender) or general prevention (i.e., to prevent the imitation of the crime by others). One explanation for this may be that individuals tend to focus on salient cues while ignoring others when making a decision and critically, generally pay relatively little attention to secondary or long-term effects of their decision-making. This suggests that people’s punishment goals may be subject to the information salient about the crime situation. Specifically, individuals may only pursue utilitarian goals with their punishment, if aspects related to such long-term consequences of punishment are salient (such as information about the offender or the broad circumstances surrounding the crime). To examine this, we manipulated the salience of different aspects in a scenario describing a crime. In two preregistered experiments, participants were asked to choose from (Experiment 1, N = 291) or rate the appropriateness of (Experiment 2, N = 366) different reactions to the crime; these reactions were pretested for the degree to which they served each of the punishment goals: retribution, special prevention, and general prevention. As hypothesized, we found that participants’ punishment goals were associated with the salience of specific aspects of the scenario describing the crime situation. This extends on research suggesting that laypeople’s punishment goals are malleable and may depend on the research design employed by a particular study

Evading open science: The black box of student data collection

While Open Science has arguably initiated positive changes at some stages of the research process (e.g., increasing transparency through preregistration), problematic behaviors during data collection are still almost impossible to detect and pose a great risk to the validity and integrity of psychological research—especially, when researchers use data collected by others (e.g., students). Exploring students’ and supervisors’ perspectives, the present registered report enlightens this “black box” of student data collection, focusing on questionable research practices and research misconduct (QRP/M). The majority of students did not report having engaged in any problematic behaviors during data collection, but some QRP/M—ranging from somewhat questionable to highly fraudulent—seem quite common (e.g., telling participants the hypothesis beforehand, participating in one’s own survey). We provide an overview of students’ reported and supervisors’ suspected data collection QRP/M, explore potential drivers for these behaviors based on the fraud triangle model (including pressures, opportunities, and rationalizations), and report how students and supervisors perceive the eligibility of student data for further uses (e.g., scientific publications). Moreover, we explore the role of the student-supervisor relationship (e.g., communication and expectations) and Open Science practices in student projects. In summary, our findings suggest the potential scientific value of data from student projects. Fostering transparent communication regarding expectations, experiences, and intentions between supervisors and students might further contribute to strengthening this prospect

Three Pillars of Physical Distancing

The outbreak of a global pandemic such as COVID-19 poses a challenge for societies across the world. Lacking both vaccination and medical treatment, the only way to combat the spread of a virus in its early stages are behavioral measures, particularly physical distancing behavior. The present work proposes three pillars of individuals’ engagement in physical distancing: anxiety, prosociality, and rule compliance. In a large (N = 1,504), pre-registered study among German adults, we studied both situation-specific tendencies and stable personality traits that are theoretically associated with these pillars in relation to self-reported physical distancing behavior and underlying motives. Results supported the importance of each of the proposed pillars for physical distancing behavior. That is, for each pillar, we found (some) relations of the corresponding tendencies and personality traits with physical distancing (motives) as expected. Overall, the project provides a comprehensive picture of physical distancing behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic

The motivational basis of third-party punishment in children.

People willingly accept personal costs to sanction norm violations even if they are not personally affected by the wrongdoing and even if their sanctioning yields no immediate benefits-a behavior known as third-party punishment. A notable body of literature suggests that this behavior is primarily driven by retribution (i.e., evening out the harm caused), rather than by the utilitarian motives of special prevention (i.e., preventing recidivism), or general prevention (i.e., preventing imitation). This has led to the conclusion that laypeople are "retributivists" in general. More recent evidence, however, raises doubts about the ubiquity of retributivism, showing that punishment is driven by multiple motives. The present research adds to this debate by investigating the motives underlying punishment in children around age 10. Specifically, we investigate children's (N = 238) punishment motives in an economic game paradigm, isolating punishment motives by experimentally manipulating the extent to which the offender and a bystander learn about the punishment. This offers the possibility to examine whether (and to what extent) children engage in punishment even when it is devoid of any preventive effects. Results show that children's punishment is motivated by retributive, special preventive, and general preventive purposes. These results point to a clear need for further theory specification on the motivational basis of punishment in humans and provide practical implications for the treatment of child misbehavior

Comparing teachers’ and students’ perspectives on the treatment of student misbehavior

Materials, data, and analysis accompanying the manuscript "Comparing teachers’ and students’ perspectives on the treatment of student misbehavior

Three pillars of physical distancing: Anxiety, prosociality, and rule compliance during the COVID-19-pandemic

The outbreak of a global pandemic such as COVID-19 poses a challenge for societies across the world. Lacking both vaccination and medical treatment, the only way to combat the spread of a virus in its early stages are behavioral measures, particularly physical distancing behavior. The present work proposes three pillars of individuals’ engagement in physical distancing: anxiety, prosociality, and rule compliance. In a large (N = 1,504), pre-registered study among German adults, we studied both situation-specific tendencies and stable personality traits that are theoretically associated with these pillars in relation to self-reported physical distancing behavior and underlying motives. Results supported the importance of each of the proposed pillars for physical distancing behavior. That is, for each pillar, we found (some) relations of the corresponding tendencies and personality traits with physical distancing (motives) as expected. Overall, the project provides a comprehensive picture of physical distancing behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic