Is costly punishment altruistic? Exploring rejection of unfair offers in the Ultimatum Game in real-world altruists

Abstract

In the Ultimatum Game (UG), incurring a cost to punish inequity is commonly termed altruistic punishment. This behaviour is thought to benefit others if the defector becomes more equitable in future interactions. However, clear connections between punishment in the UG and altruistic behaviours outside the laboratory are lacking. We tested the altruistic punishment hypothesis in a sample of extraordinarily altruistic adults, predicting that if punishing inequity is predictive of altruism more broadly, extraordinary altruists should punish more frequently. Results showed that punishment was not more prevalent in extraordinary altruists than controls. However, a self-reported altruism measure previously linked to peer evaluations but not behaviour, and on which extraordinary altruists and controls did not differ, did predict punishment. These findings support suggestions that altruistic punishment in the UG is better termed costly punishment and may be motivated by social, but not necessarily prosocial, concerns. Results also support prior suggestions that self-reported altruism may not reliably predict altruistic behaviour.

Beyond sacrificial harm: A two-dimensional model of utilitarian psychology.

“…At the same time, neither subscale was significantly associated with need for cognition, a trait measure of motivation to engage in effortful cognition. These results are consonant with recent studies that found that extreme altruists who donated their kidneys to strangers exhibit higher empathic concern ( Brethel-Haurwitz et al, 2016 ).…”

“…The 2D model also allows us to better clarify the relationship between utilitarian moral thinking and empathic concern. Again, the negative relationship between utilitarian decision-making and empathic concern suggested by multiple prior studies ( Choe & Min, 2011 ; Conway & Gawronski, 2013 ; Gleichgerrcht & Young, 2013 ; Patil & Silani, 2014 ) is highly puzzling given the historical and, on some views, strong theoretical tie between classical utilitarianism and empathy ( Hare, 1981 ; Smart, 1961/ 1973 ) and evidence tying empathic concern to extreme altruism to distant strangers ( Brethel-Haurwitz et al, 2016 ). But our results show that this association is driven exclusively by the instrumental harm dimension of utilitarianism and that empathic concern is at the same time positively associated with impartial beneficence, utilitarianism’s positive core.…”

“…The link with empathic concern is also consonant with work suggesting that the psychological and neural profile of extreme altruists is the reverse of that of psychopaths ( Marsh et al, 2014 ). To the extent that extreme altruism is driven by unusual levels of empathic concern ( Brethel-Haurwitz et al, 2016 ), the 2D model predicts that such extreme altruists would be high in impartial beneficence but low on instrumental harm. And although we did not find a negative association between psychopathy and impartial beneficence in the lay population, we have previously found that psychopathy was linked to reduced endorsement of self-sacrifice for the greater good in the ‘greater good’ vignettes ( Kahane et al, 2015 ).…”

Experiments in political psychology

“…The evidence we have covered here broadly supports the view that, compared to the economic dimension of ideology, the social dimension is more consistently related to punitiveness, at least in the ultimatum game. The reason social conservatism and related variables are often associated with punitive behaviour in the ultimatum game may be that punitiveness in this game seems to reflect normative rather than pro-social or anti-social behaviour (Brañas-Garza et al, 2014;Brethel-Haurwitz et al, 2016;Yamagishi et al, 2012). 3…”

Do emotions play an essential role in moral judgments?

“…For example, individuals who have anonymously donated their kidneys evince greater amygdala responsiveness than do matched controls (Marsh, Stoycos, Brethel-Haurwitz, Robinson, VanMeter, & Cardinale, 2014). Anonymous kidney donors are also high in dispositional sympathy (Brethel-Haurwitz, Stoycos, Cardinale, Huebner, & Marsh, 2016). Recall that sympathy is elicited by the perception of others' distress, and generates altruistic motivation (Batson, 2011).…”