Is overpunishment fairer than underpunishment? Perceptions of deviations from equity

Abstract

Thrce studies are presented which test hypothtscs derived from Equity Theory, Prospect Theory and the principle of Diminishing Marginal Value with regard to preferences for overpunishment and underpunishment in the assignment of penalties to offences of varying severity. The f i t two studies showed that, with dimerent subject sarnpl~s offenas, and kinds of punishments subjects indicated a marked preference for overpunishment rather than underpunishment. when both over punishment and underpunishment deviated from idcal, or equitable, punishment to the same degree. However, the effect was only apparent for serious offences. A third study showed that the overpunishment preference for a serious offence existed even when the overpunishment deviated 30% more from ideal punishment than underpunishment, but again no preferena was shown'for the less serious offence. As the results cannot be readily explained in terms of any of the three explanatory principles. a possible explanation in terms of concept of negative reciprocity is advanced.

Humans' Assessment of Robots as Moral Regulators: Importance of Perceived Fairness and Legitimacy

“…It would be unfair to impose upon the transgressor either too weak (i.e., under-punishment) or too strong punishment (i.e., over-punishment), compared to the severity of their norm violation. A Human-Human Interaction (HHI) study (Wagstaff and Preece 1997) showed that, when forced to choose between under-and over-punishment that equally deviated from the fitting punishment, people's endorsement of over-and under-punishment was similar for mild violations but their endorsement of over-punishment was stronger for severe violations. Thus, the impact of over-and underpunishment on people's perception of fairness may also be influenced by various factors like the severity of a norm violation.…”

“…Next, based upon the findings from human-human interactions (Wagstaff and Preece 1997), we present our hypotheses about the perceived fairness of over-punishment and under-punishment as a function of the severity of a norm violation.…”