Children endorse deterrence motivations for third-party punishment but derive higher enjoyment from compensating victims

• Published in: Journal of experimental child psychology 2023-06, Vol.230, p.105630-105630, Article 105630
• Main Authors: Arini, Rhea L., Mahmood, Marukh, Bocarejo Aljure, Juliana, Ingram, Gordon P.D., Wiggs, Luci, Kenward, Ben
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Child; Compensation of victims; Emotions; Enjoyment and endorsement of third-party interventions; Happiness; Humans; Motivation; Pleasure; Punishment - psychology; Punishment motives; Third-party punishment
• ISSN: 0022-0965; 1096-0457
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2023.105630

•Children endorse punishment over compensation, even though they derive higher enjoyment from compensation than from punishment.•Punishment enjoyment decreases while compensation enjoyment increases over time.•Children endorse deterrence irrespective of age, and have a recollection of the purpose of punishment biased toward deterrence.•Using a novel, virtual environment (a Minecraft Justice System) is a viable method for collecting behavioural data with children over the internet. Children’s punishment behavior may be driven by both retribution and deterrence, but the potential primacy of either motive is unknown. Moreover, children’s punishment enjoyment and compensation enjoyment have never been directly contrasted. Here, British, Colombian, and Italian 7- to 11-year-old children (N = 123) operated a Justice System in which they viewed different moral transgressions in Minecraft, a globally popular video game, either face-to-face with an experimenter or over the internet. Children could respond to transgressions by punishing transgressors and compensating victims. The purpose of the system was framed in terms of retribution, deterrence, or compensation between participants. Children’s performance, endorsement, and enjoyment of punishment and compensation were measured, along with their endorsement of retribution versus deterrence as punishment justifications, during and/or after justice administration. Children overwhelmingly endorsed deterrence over retribution as their punishment justification irrespective of age. When asked to reproduce the presented frame in their own words, children more reliably reproduced the deterrence frame rather than the retribution frame. Punishment enjoyment decreased while compensation enjoyment increased over time. Despite enjoying compensation more, children preferentially endorsed punishment over compensation, especially with increasing age and transgression severity. Reported deterrent justifications, superior reproduction of deterrence framing, lower enjoyment of punishment than of compensation, and higher endorsement of punishment over compensation together suggest that children felt that they ought to mete out punishment as a means to deter future transgressions. Face-to-face and internet-mediated responses were not distinguishable, supporting a route to social psychology research with primary school-aged children unable to physically visit labs.