The Influence Of Intentions,Results And Their Matching On Third-party’s Punishment

Third-party punishment plays an important role in maintaining social norms,and it has been studied in a wide range of literature.Many previous studies,however,adopted a paradigm when the third-party observers believed that any distribution result reflects the intention of the distributor correspondingly.Thus the distribution result being observed may confound with the norm-violation intention being perceived.Therefore,distinguishing the intention and result of the third-party punishment is important to understand how people facing the dilemma of inconsistent intention and result.The current study developed a red envelope paradigm that can separate intention and result based on the Third-party Dictator Game to explore the influence of intentions and results on third-party punishment,as well as the psychological mechanisms behind it.Study 1 explored how the third party’s punishment behavior would occur when the intention information is presented solely.Study 2 adopted an alternative approach to manipulate presentation of intentions,by presenting distributors’ selection as being constrained,and explored the impact of intention information on third-party punishments.Sturdy 3 explored the influence of intention and result on third-party punishment,when they are presented at the same time and vary independently.Study 4expanded the conditions of Study 3 and tried to explain the predictors of third-party punishment.We found that whether the result information is presented or not,as the self-interest of the distribution plan increases,the third-party punishment will increase.The third party’s willingness to punish is more dependent on the intention information,and the intensity of the punishment is more dependent on the result information.When the intention and the result are inconsistent,the punishment of the third party will cooperate with the external mechanism to maintain the fairness criterion.The mediation results show that anger plays a part of mediation in the process of intention and result affecting third-party punishment.This study explored the influence of intention and result on the third-party punishment,finally,we found that the punishment of the third party is affected by both at the same time,and the psychological mechanism for the influence of intention and result is different.This result helps people understand how third-party punishment occurs in the dilemma of economic games.