Doctoral Dissertation Research in DRMS: Victim Compensation

过去关于受害者赔偿的研究特别关注同情作为其主要动机。然而，最近的研究发现，当有人因违反社会规范而遭受损失时，道德义愤而不是同情心会促使第三方赔偿受害者。这个研究项目建立在这一发现的基础上，以调查愤怒驱动的补偿的潜在动机。本研究使用实验经济学的行为游戏和心理学的尺度测量，检验了人们补偿社会规范违反的受害者以表明他们自己对规范的认可的一般假设。这项研究通过对捐赠行为的心理决定因素提供一个更细致入微的观点来推进捐赠科学。这种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规范的一致性。大量的心理学研究表明，补偿是由对受害者的同情心驱动的。补偿行为被解释为一种通过间接互惠实现有效资源共享的形式。然而，最近的研究表明，当损失是由于违反社会规范，道德愤怒，而不是移情关注，驱动第三方赔偿受害者。鉴于这种动机与其他类型的补偿行为的差异，这一结果表明，一个独特的心理机制，潜在的社会规范违反的受害者补偿。由于对违反规范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的，并受到相同的进化压力的影响。基于这种相似性，本研究提出了规范传播假说：对社会规范违反的受害者进行补偿的功能是发出补偿者对违反规范的认可的信号。适应第三方惩罚模型，本研究探讨了两种可能的假设的好处，这种公共广播提供给补偿，这两个可能同时有助于这种行为的出现。第一个是声誉传播假说：通过补偿者发出他们对规范的认可的信号，观察者将来会更喜欢与补偿者互动。第二个是规范稳定假设：通过信号的认可规范，补偿器减轻破坏规范的违规行为的影响，增加的可能性，规范被维持，并在合作规范的情况下，增加预期的利益补偿器从合作的盈余生成属性在未来的互动。使用一系列修改后的信任游戏，四个拟议的研究测试这三个假设。因为道德愤怒驱动对违反规范的受害者的补偿的发现是这个项目的基础，所以第一项研究用金钱激励复制了这个结果。第二项研究旨在检验一般规范传播假设，衡量第三方在被他人观察时是否补偿更多。第三项研究检验了规范稳定假说的预测：那些观察到规范违反的受害者得到补偿的人更有可能遵守规范。最后，第四项研究测试了声誉传播假设的预测：在类似的社会背景下，当选择游戏伙伴时，人们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.