Premium
On Hotheads and Dirty Harries
Author(s) -
Seip Elise C.,
van Dijk Wilco W.,
Rotteveel Mark
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
annals of the new york academy of sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.712
H-Index - 248
eISSN - 1749-6632
pISSN - 0077-8923
DOI - 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04503.x
Subject(s) - anger , punishment (psychology) , psychology , social psychology , intentionality , perception , mechanism (biology) , altruism (biology) , epistemology , philosophy , neuroscience
Recent research has shown that individuals are prepared to incur costs to punish non‐cooperators, even in one‐shot interactions. However, why would people punish non‐cooperators with no apparent benefits for the punishers themselves? This behavior is also known as altruistic punishment. When defection is discovered, an individual evaluates this act as unfair, which could result in anger. We argue that although unfairness and anger are often intertwined, it is primarily the experience of anger and not the perception of unfairness that produces altruistic punishment. We briefly present recent data in line with the hypothesis that identifies anger as the underlying mechanism of altruistic punishment. Furthermore, additional influences regarding the occurrence of altruistic punishment, e.g., intentionality of the interaction partner, the role of satisfaction, and individual differences, are discussed.