TY - JOUR
T1 - Punishment is Organized around Principles of Communicative Inference
AU - Sarin, Arunima
AU - Ho, Mark K.
AU - Martin, Justin W.
AU - Cushman, Fiery A.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2021/3
Y1 - 2021/3
N2 - Humans use punishment to influence each other's behavior. Many current theories presume that this operates as a simple form of incentive. In contrast, we show that people infer the communicative intent behind punishment, which can sometimes diverge sharply from its immediate incentive value. In other words, people respond to punishment not as a reward to be maximized, but as a communicative signal to be interpreted. Specifically, we show that people expect harmless, yet communicative, punishments to be as effective as harmful punishments (Experiment 1). Under some situations, people display a systematic preference for harmless punishments over more canonical, harmful punishments (Experiment 2). People readily seek out and infer the communicative message inherent in a punishment (Experiment 3). And people expect that learning from punishment depends on the ease with which its communicative intent can be inferred (Experiment 4). Taken together, these findings demonstrate that people expect punishment to be constructed and interpreted as a communicative act.
AB - Humans use punishment to influence each other's behavior. Many current theories presume that this operates as a simple form of incentive. In contrast, we show that people infer the communicative intent behind punishment, which can sometimes diverge sharply from its immediate incentive value. In other words, people respond to punishment not as a reward to be maximized, but as a communicative signal to be interpreted. Specifically, we show that people expect harmless, yet communicative, punishments to be as effective as harmful punishments (Experiment 1). Under some situations, people display a systematic preference for harmless punishments over more canonical, harmful punishments (Experiment 2). People readily seek out and infer the communicative message inherent in a punishment (Experiment 3). And people expect that learning from punishment depends on the ease with which its communicative intent can be inferred (Experiment 4). Taken together, these findings demonstrate that people expect punishment to be constructed and interpreted as a communicative act.
KW - Communication
KW - Learning
KW - Mental state inference
KW - Pragmatics
KW - Punishment
KW - Social cognition
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U2 - 10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104544
DO - 10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104544
M3 - Article
C2 - 33383397
AN - SCOPUS:85098599844
SN - 0010-0277
VL - 208
JO - Cognition
JF - Cognition
M1 - 104544
ER -