The Influence Of Moral Foundations And Temporal Distance On The Group Bias In Third-party Punishment

Third-party punishment is essential for the formation and enforcement of social norms.However,studies find that people show group bias in third-party punishment:the group identity of the first and second party have influence on people’s willingness to punish and intensity of punishment.Many studies prove the existence of group bias in third-party punishment,but few of them explore the factors of it.Moral foundations theory discovers five moral foundations across human society: fairness,care,loyalty,authority and sanctity,and finds that the endorsement of fairness and loyalty have influence on the group bias in prosocial behavior.Studies on psychological distance find that spatial distance has influence on the group bias in prosocial behavior,and according to the assumption of interchangeability of distance dimensions,this is also true for temporal distance.Studies involving the relationship between moral foundations and psychological distance suggest that the moral judgment of people with higher endorsement of fairness is less susceptible to situational factors like temporal distance and so on.Studies adopting priming techniques find that the salience of different moral foundations has influence on moral judgment.To sum up,the studies mentioned above suggest that moral foundations and temporal distance have influence on the group bias in third-party punishment,and that the influence is moderated by the salience of different moral foundations.To explore these problems,the study designs two behavioral experiments.Experiment 1 manipulates the group identity of the first and second party by clues of nationality and explores the influence of moral foundations and temporal distance on the group bias in third-party punishment.Experiment 2 manipulates the group identity of the second party by clues of interpersonal relationship to replicate the findings of Experiment 1.Furthermore,Experiment 2 explores how the salience of different moral foundations moderate the influence of moral foundations and temporal distance on the group bias in third-party punishment.The results show that:(1)The group bias in third-party punishment exists: people are more sensitive to the group identity of the second party,people’s willingness to punish and intensity of punishment increase as their social distance from the second party decrease(p < 0.001).(2)The group bias in third-party punishment increases as temporal distance increases(p < 0.001).(3)The group bias in third-party punishment of people with higher endorsement of fairness,compared with lower endorsement of fairness,is less susceptible to the increase of temporal distance(p < 0.05).(4)The group bias in third-party punishment of people in fairness priming group,compared with control group,is less susceptible to the increase of temporal distance;the group bias in third-party punishment of people in loyalty priming group,compared with control group,is more susceptible to the increase of temporal distance(p < 0.001).(5)The group bias in third-party punishment in fairness priming group shows no increase as temporal distance increases for people with higher and lower endorsement of fairness;the group bias in third-party punishment in loyalty priming group increases as temporal distance increases for people with higher and lower endorsement of fairness,but the group bias increases less for people with higher endorsement of fairness(p < 0.001).The study may be the first one to combine moral foundations theory,psychological distance and third-party punishment.Theoretically,the study may expand the interpretation domain of moral foundations theory;practically,the study may inspire legal workers handling cases and people evaluating historical events.