The Impact Of First-order Punishment On Higher-order Punishment: From The Perspective Of Social Norm

Social norms play an important role in promoting and maintaining social order.Generally speaking,the two major topics of social norm research are norm compliance and norm enforcement.Punishment(also known as negative reciprocity)is a way to maintain norms.In the process of punishment,the punisher pays the price to punish the violator,so that the violator loses certain interests and promotes the violator to abide by the norms.A large number of studies have explored the influence of second-party punishment and thirdparty punishment on the formation of social norms,but few studies have systematically explored the mechanism of second-party punishment and third-party punishment in activating social norms.Therefore,this study introduces higher-order punishment,in order to explore the influence of first-order punishment source and first-order punishment results on higher-order punishment and the moderating effect of level of harm and thus reveal the source of first-order punishment and punishment affect higher-order boundary conditions of the punishment,so as to provide experimental basis for intervention of higher-order punishment.This research contains three experiments,experiment 1 application adaptation of the dictator game paradigm(DG)and 2(first-order punishment source: the second party,thirdparty)x 2(first-order results: punishment,no punishment)subjects between experiment design to explore the influence of first-order punishment source and result on higher-order punishment and the interaction of both.In order to verify the universality of the results of Experiment 1,experiment 2 used situational test task and 2(first-order punishment source:second party,third party)×2(first-order punishment result: punished,did not punished)experiment design to explore the influence of first-order punishment source and first-order punishment result on higher-order punishment and their interaction.The experiment 3 was designed as 2(first-order punishment source: second party,third party)×2(first-order punishment result: punished,did not punished)×2(outcome: harm,no harm)between design.The source of first-order punishment and the effect of first-order punishment on higher-order punishment,as well as the moderating effect of harm result on this process,were further investigated.The results and conclusions of this study are as follows:1.The source of first-order punishment has a significant influence on higher-order punishment.The punishment rate and intensity of higher-order punishment are higher when the first-order punishment comes from a third party than when the first-order punishment comes from the second party2.The first-order punishment results significantly affect the higher-order punishment,and the punishment rate and intensity of the higher-order punisher are higher when the firstorder punishment is not punished than when the first-order punishment is punished3.There is an interaction between the source of first-order punishment and the result of punishment on the higher-order punishment: when the first-order punishment comes from a third party,the punishment rate and intensity of the higher-order punishment are higher than those of the second-order punishment.There was no significant difference in punishment rate and punishment intensity between the first-order punishment from the third party and the second-order punishment.This result indicates that the third party punishment itself embodies an injunctive norm.4.Outcome moderated the effect of first-order punishment sources on higher-order punishment: when harm was done,there was no significant difference in punishment rate and punishment intensity of higher-order punisher under different first-order punishment sources;When no harm was done,the higher punisher punished at a higher rate and intensity when the first-order punishment came from the third party than when the first-order punishment came from the second party.5.The outcome of a defection moderates the effect of the first-order punishment result on the higher-order punishment: when harm is done,the punishment rate and punishment intensity of the higher-order punisher to the first-order non-punisher are greater;There was no significant difference between the punishment rate and punishment intensity of the highorder punisher in different first-order punishment results when no harm was caused.In this study,the moderating effects of outcome on the origin of first-order punishment and the effect of punishment results on higher-order punishment were investigated,and the boundary conditions of first-order punishment on higher-order punishment were theoretically revealed.It is not only of great practical significance to instruct the punisher how to maintain moral and legal social norms through first-order punishment or higher-order punishment,but also to intervene in higher-order punishment.