Moral emotions as determinants of third-party punishment: Anger, guilt, and the functions of altruistic sanctions

By Rob M. A. Nelissen, M. Zeelenberg. Judgment and Decision Making, 2009

208 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Third-party punishment has recently received attention as an explanation for human altruism. Feelings of anger in response to norm violations are assumed to motivate third-party sanctions, yet there is only sparse and indirect support for this idea. We investigated the impact of both anger and guilt feelings on third-party sanctions. In two studies both emotions were independently manipulated. Results show that anger and guilt independently constitute sufficient but not necessary causes of punishment. Low levels of punishment are observed only when neither emotion is elicited. We discuss the implications of these findings for the functions of altruistic sanctions.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ce9d286b5318ee33020c52404ad5a01c3b6ce1e9

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Citations in the corpus

Individual differences in third-party interventions: How justice sensitivity shapes altruistic punishment (2011, background): “In the special case of third-party punishment, moral emotions have also been analyzed as a crucial cause of third-party responses to injustice (e.g., Lotz, Okimoto, Schlösser, & Fetchenhauer, 2011; Nelissen & Zeelenberg, 2009).”
Anger and Prosocial Behavior (2014, background): “…and punishment (e.g., Berkowitz, 1990; Bougie, Pieters, & Zeelenberg, 2003; Frijda, Kuipers, & Ter Schure, 1989; Greitemeyer & Rudolph, 2003; Lemay, Overall, & Clark, 2012; Nelissen & Zeelenberg, 2009; Pillutla & Murnighan, 1996; Roseman, Wiest, & Swartz, 1994; van Coillie & van Mechelen, 2006).”