Doctoral Dissertation Research in DRMS: Victim Compensation

过去关于受害者赔偿的研究特别侧重于将同理心作为其主要动机。然而，最近的研究发现，当某人因违反社会规范而遭受损失时，道德愤怒而不是同情心会促使第三方赔偿受害者。这项研究项目以这一发现为基础，调查愤怒驱动的补偿的潜在动机。利用实验经济学中的行为博弈和心理学中的尺度测量，本研究检验了人们补偿违反社会规范的受害者是为了表明他们自己对规范的认可这一普遍假设。这项研究通过对捐赠行为的心理决定因素提供更微妙的观点，推动了捐赠科学的发展。这一理解为进一步的应用工作奠定了框架，以增加自愿援助以及遵守规范。大量的心理学工作表明，补偿是由对受害者的同理心驱动的。补偿行为被解释为通过间接互惠实现有效资源共享的一种形式。然而，最近的研究表明，如果损失是由于违反社会规范而造成的，道德上的愤怒，而不是同理心，会促使第三方赔偿受害者。鉴于这种动机与其他类型的补偿行为的不同，这一结果表明了对违反社会规范的受害者进行补偿的独特心理机制。由于对违规者的惩罚也被证明是出于愤怒，惩罚和补偿可能都是由相同的心理机制驱动和由相同的进化压力塑造的。鉴于这种相似性，本研究发展了规范广播假说：补偿违反社会规范的受害者的功能是发出补偿者对违反规范的认可的信号。采用第三方惩罚模型，本研究探索了公共广播给补偿方带来的利益背后的两个可能的假设，这两个假设都可能同时导致这种行为的出现。第一种是声誉传播假说：通过补偿者发出认可规范的信号，观察者将更愿意在未来与补偿者互动。第二种是规范稳定假说：补偿者通过发出认可规范的信号，减轻了违反规范的破坏规范的影响，增加了规范维持的可能性，在合作规范的情况下，增加了补偿者在未来互动中从合作的剩余产生属性中获得的预期收益。通过一系列修改后的信任博弈，四项研究对这三个假设进行了检验。因为道德愤怒推动了对违反规范的受害者的补偿，这一发现为这个项目奠定了基础，第一项研究通过金钱激励重复了这一结果。第二项研究旨在检验一般规范广播假说，衡量第三方在被他人观察时是否会获得更多补偿。第三项研究检验了规范稳定假说的预测：那些观察到违反规范的受害者得到补偿的人更有可能自己遵守规范。最后，第四项研究检验了声誉传播假说的预测：在类似的社会背景下，人们在为游戏选择伙伴时，更喜欢那些以前补偿过违反规范的受害者的人。

Past research on victim compensation specifically has focused on empathy as its primary motivator. However, recent research has found that, when someone experiences a loss due to the violation of a social norm, moral indignation rather than empathy drives third parties to compensate victims. This research project builds on that finding to investigate the underlying motivation for anger-driven compensation. Using behavioral games from experimental economics and scale measures from psychology, this research tests the general hypothesis that people compensate victims of social norm violations in order to signal their own endorsement of the norm. This research advances the science of giving by providing a more nuanced view of the psychological determinants of giving behavior. This understanding lays the framework for further applied work to increase voluntary assistance as well as norm conformity.A large body of psychological work has shown that compensation is driven by feeling empathic concern for the victim. Compensatory behavior has been explained as a form of efficient resource sharing through indirect reciprocity. Recent research, however, has demonstrated that, when a loss is due to the violation of a social norm, moral anger, and not empathic concern, drives third parties to compensate victims. Given this difference in motivation from other types of compensatory behavior, this result suggests a distinct psychological mechanism underlying the compensation of victims of social norm violations. As the punishment of norm violators has also been shown to be motivated by anger, punishment and compensation may both be driven by the same psychological mechanism and shaped by the same evolutionary pressures. In light of this similarity, this research develops the norm broadcasting hypothesis: the function of compensating the victim of a social norm violation is to signal the compensator's endorsement of the violated norm. Adapting models of third party punishment, this research explores two possible hypotheses underlying the benefits that this public broadcasting delivers to the compensator, both of which could simultaneously contribute to the emergence of this behavior. The first is the reputation broadcasting hypothesis: by compensators signaling their endorsement of the norm, observers will prefer interacting with the compensator in the future. The second is the norm stabilization hypothesis: by signaling their endorsement of the norm, the compensator mitigates the norm undermining effect of the violation, increasing the likelihood that the norm is maintained and, in the case of cooperative norms, increasing the expected benefit to the compensator from cooperation's surplus generating properties in future interactions. Using a series of modified trust games, the four proposed studies test these three hypotheses. Because the finding that moral anger drives the compensation of victims of norm violations grounds this project, the first study replicates this result with monetary incentives. The second study, designed to test the general norm broadcasting hypothesis, measures whether third parties compensate more when they are being observed by others. The third study tests a prediction of the norm stabilization hypothesis: that those who observe the victim of a norm violation being compensated are more likely to obey the norm themselves. Lastly, the fourth study tests a prediction of the reputation broadcasting hypothesis: that people prefer those who previously compensated a norm violation victim when selecting a partner for a game in a similar social context.