An Empirical Study About Whether Punishment On Political Anent Can Repair Political Trust

In recent years, with the development of mass media, citizens pay more and more attention on the government and ask the government to continuously improve the management capacity, however the trust level about government declining continuously..How to managing citizen scientifically, and repairing political trust become a thorny problem for government to face. This research aim at Political Psychology, using the theory principal agent from basic Political Economy, though dictator game paradigm and ERPs technology. Verified that punishment on the political agent can repair political trust, and by means of ERPs technology to find the possible of neural mechanism about how punishment repairing political trust.According to the experimental results conclusions were drawn as follows(1) Results from experiment one argued that punishment on political agent can indeed repair political trust. Compared with non-punishment condition, the options on trust (57.16±13.9%) is significantly lager in punishment condition (72.79±13.4%). The reaction time showed results that, in punishment condition the average reaction time was 1896.84± 105.94ms, and in non-punishment the average reaction time was 1985.54±156.55ms, there are significant different between these two reaction time (p<0.05).(2) Results from ERPs indicated that in report phase, although the report from political agents is same one, but just under different condition, subjects are differences in information processing P200 and P300 evoked by punishment and non-punishment conditions had significant difference in prefrontal area (p<0.05). Compared with punishment conditions non-punishment condition amplitude is higher, and there are hemispheric significantly differences in left hemisphere than the right hemisphere (p<0.05).(3) Results from ERPs indicated that, in decision phase, because of the legitimacy of cognition about punish, when subjects evaluate the value about information the amplitude of N1, P200 and P300 evoked by punishment and non-punishment conditions had significant difference in prefrontal area (p<0.05). Compared with punishment conditions non-punishment condition amplitude is higher, and there are hemispheric significantly differences in left hemisphere than the right hemisphere (p<0.05).(4) Results from ERPs indicated that, in feedback phase due to the previously decision on punishment, when subjects evaluate feedback information the amplitude of P300 evoked by punishment and non-punishment conditions induced P300 amplitude had no significant difference in prefrontal area (p>0.05).Comprehensive above four results, on the one hand, verified that punishment on political agents can definitely repair political trust which destroyed by dishonest behavior from government. On the other hand, revealing possible mechanism of the nervous system about punishment on political agents. For example in the stimulus and selection phase, because of justification of punishment, citizen treat punishment as positive stimuli and non-punishment as negative stimuli. How punishment repairing political trust is that citizen reassess the value of information and make the decision whether to re-trust the government. Because of the existence of moral emotion, such as guilt, regret, when citizen accepting feedback after making punitive option the composition of the ERPs such as P300 is affected by the emotion. The reason why punishment can repair political trust possible because citizen re-evaluation of positive and negative information, and make decision.