Why we love to punish the wrongdoers so much - even the ones who didn't hurt us

Why do people like to punish offenders?

Imagine that right in front of the traffic light, a car emerges from the next row, cuts you off and flies by for the first seconds of the green. You are indignant, but only until you notice that immediately after the intersection of the impudent driver, the inspector of the traffic police, who had not been noticed before, slows down. A pleasant warmth spreads inside you.

People enjoy listening to stories about how violators get what they deserve. Moreover, it is equally pleasant to learn that they put a murderer in jail, took away a fortune from briber or "broke down" an arrogant client.

Even folk tales end with the punishment of evil characters, often quite cruelly, and this does not raise questions. It `s naturally. And it's nice - moreover, so much so that people are ready to punish violators, even to their own detriment.

In one experiment, participants suggested

economic game. Two people were given the same amount of money. One of them could cheat and significantly increase it. His partner, in turn, could either put up with this, or deprive the dishonest player of part of the money without loss for himself, or pay to fined in double size.

At the same time, scientists scanned the brains of the participants during the game. It turned out that when people got a chance to take revenge on the offender, they activated the dorsal striatum - part reward systems, which determines how pleasant this or that action will be.

And the higher the activity in this area, the more money the participants were willing to pay to punish a dishonest partner.

In other words, they were looking forward to the pleasure of retribution.

You can understand why it is gratifying to be able to punish those who harmed you personally. But people are pleased to know about the retribution that has overtaken those who have nothing to do with them.

Why do we punish those who have done nothing wrong to us

In one experiment held the economic game "Justice". Initially, the participants were given 200 chips. Then one could take from the other a certain amount, up to 100, and add to his fund.

After that, the cheated player could spend his resources to punish the dishonest participant - pay one chip so that three were taken from the opponent. The maximum could be spent on revenge 100 tokens, and thus leave the partner without funds at all.

Then the scientists added another player - the observer. He did not participate in the game, but he also received chips and could spend them either on punishing the “dishonest” participant, or on compensating the “victim”.

It turned out that the observers were willing to spend money on restoration justice, although no one took resources from them personally. Moreover, they were much more likely to punish than help those who suffered from foul play.

Scientists have found that the decision to punish the player activated the reward system in the brain much more than the thought of compensating the victim.

In other words, it was much more pleasant to punish - and observers preferred such justice.

What is even more interesting is that it is not only adults who know and agree with moral the norms of society. Encourage prosocial behavior and preschoolers, and even six-month-old children.

In one experiment six-year-olds watched as a couple of other kids shared a dragee. If the split was unfair, the little contestants could step in and donate their candy to deprive the "greedy" of sweets. And they did it.

In a different research five-month-old children watched a puppet show in which one puppet either helped or hindered the other. For example, she took the ball or gave it. After the performance, the audience was asked to either give the doll a toy treat or take it away from it, as well as take candy from one puppet and give it to another. And kids were more likely to reward the pro-social puppet.

Thus, the desire to punish violators of social rules is literally sewn in into our nature. So, it must play an important role in survival. And indeed it is.

Is it bad that we like to punish others

Punishing offenders plays a critical role in human cooperation. The latter literally cannot exist without such a mechanism.

In any group there are people who tend to cooperate without any coercion from the outside, as well as some percentage of selfish members who do not work for the common good under any circumstances, even under threat punishment.

The rest, on the whole, agree to cooperate, but only if everyone does so. Or if they are punished for their selfish decision.

In anonymous economic experiments, where a person can take all the benefits for himself, provided that no one knows about it, cooperation is a rare occurrence. At first people prefer act for the common good, but if the same experience is repeated several times, the participants quickly move to selfish decisions.

In one experiment without the possibility of penalties for being greedy, the percentage of those who preferred to team up fell from 40% to 10% by the 10th iteration. When did they introduce the possibility of punishment from outside observers, 60% of the participants moved from selfishness to cooperation, and over time, almost all of them cooperated.

The possibility of punishing selfish members of society gives people confidence that everyone will behave as expected. And if so, you can relax and calmly cooperate without expecting a catch.

Thus, both our desire to punish violators and the deep sense of satisfaction from this are not just selfish desire for pleasure, but a necessary mechanism that makes people do the right thing for good society.