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Social Justice Research

Erschienen in:

05.07.2023

The Role of Structure-Seeking in Moral Punishment

verfasst von: Matthew L. Stanley, Shenyang Huang, Elizabeth J. Marsh, Aaron C. Kay

Erschienen in: Social Justice Research | Ausgabe 4/2023

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Abstract

Four studies (total N = 1586) test the notion that people are motivated to punish moral rule violators because punishment offers a way to obtain structure and order in the world. First, in a correlational study, increased need for structure was associated with the stronger endorsement punishment for moral rule violators. This relationship between need for structure and punishment was not driven by political conservatism. Three experimental studies then tested, and corroborated, our main causal hypotheses: that threats to structure increase punitive judgments for moral rule violators (i.e., a compensatory mechanism; Study 2) and that a lack of punishment for wrongdoing (relative to punishment for wrongdoing) makes the world seem less structured in the moment (Studies 3 and 4). We compare and contrast our structure-based account of moral punishment to other theories and findings across the punishment literature.

Vorheriger Artikel The Dark Side of Meritocratic Beliefs: Is Believing in Meritocracy Detrimental to Individuals from Low Socioeconomic Backgrounds?

Nächster Artikel Experimental and Longitudinal Investigations of the Causal Relationship Between Belief in a Just World and Subjective Well-Being

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Neuberg and Newsom (1993) originally created a 12-item scale, but they recommended dropping one item from their scale (“I enjoy being spontaneous”). We followed their recommendation. Other research using this personal need for structure scale has also followed this recommendation (e.g., Friesen et al., 2014; Ma, Axt, & Kay, 2019; Ma et al., 2023; Stanley & Kay, 2022; Stanley, Marsh, & Kay, 2020).

We realized after the fact that the language used in describing our hypothesis in the preregistration was too vague regarding the expected direction of the relationship. The language for the hypothesis in the main manuscript is clearer about directionality than the language in the preregistration. For transparency, we thought it important to note this discrepancy between the language in the preregistration and the language in the main manuscript.

The percentage of participants failing the first check based on the memory cue manipulation was higher than we anticipated. This could be indicative of the narrowness and specificity of the memory cues we employed.

We also computed the same statistical test while including in the analysis all participants who failed the memory manipulation check question. Note that four participants who failed the memory manipulation check also failed the attention check at the end. Including participants who failed the memory manipulation check question (but not the attention check question at the end), participants in the punishment condition (M = 4.68, SD = 1.13) reported that their worlds seemed more structured than participants in the no punishment condition (M = 4.47, SD = 1.35), but this effect did not reach the threshold for statistical significance (M_diff = .21, SE_diff = .13; t(392) = 1.68, p = .094, 95% CI for M_diff = [-.04, .46], d = .17).

We also computed the same statistical test while including in the analysis all participants who failed the memory manipulation check question. Note that two participants who failed the memory manipulation check also failed the attention check at the end. Including participants who failed the memory manipulation check question (but not the attention check question at the end), participants in the punishment condition (M = 4.55, SD = .93) reported that their worlds seemed significantly more structured than participants in the no punishment condition (M = 4.32, SD = 1.02; M_diff = .23, SE_diff = .10; t(411) = 2.39, p = .017, 95% CI for M_diff = [.04, .42], d = .24).

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Titel: The Role of Structure-Seeking in Moral Punishment
verfasst von: Matthew L. Stanley
Shenyang Huang
Elizabeth J. Marsh
Aaron C. Kay
Publikationsdatum: 05.07.2023
Verlag: Springer US
Erschienen in: Social Justice Research / Ausgabe 4/2023
Print ISSN: 0885-7466
Elektronische ISSN: 1573-6725
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11211-023-00416-8

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