Browsing by Subject "Accounts and Justifications"

Previous research argues that people receive positive evaluations from third parties for engaging in peer punishment, which lead to reputational rewards. Recent work challenges this, however, finding instead that punishers can potentially receive negative evaluations from others. These conflicting arguments present a set of open questions regarding third-party evaluations of punishers and the factors shaping them. This dissertation offers three studies intended to improve knowledge surrounding these questions. These studies contribute to research in this area by using data from real-world settings to test experimental findings from the laboratory, and by considering how punishers can use verbal justifications to shape third-party evaluations of their actions.

The first of these studies, contained in Chapter 2, uses data from therapeutic communities for addiction treatment (TCs) to determine if people generally receive reputational rewards for engaging in peer punishment. Using social network analysis of data from four TCs, it asks whether residents of these communities are more likely to be identified as “role models” by others when they engage in punishment. Results offer mixed support for this being the case, with punishers being more likely to receive role model nominations from peers in two communities but no more likely in the other two. Simultaneously, results indicate that punishers are more likely to receive role model nominations from supervisory staff. Findings from this study show how punishers may or may not receive reputational rewards from peers and from authority figures, and suggest the importance of local institutional and cultural contexts in how third parties evaluate punishment.

Chapter 3 identifies the importance of social and relational factors in how people construct justifications for peer sanctions. Using social network analysis and automated text analysis on data from one TC, it examines how social proximity, status differences, and friendships shape the amount of explanatory effort made in justifications of rewards and punishment. Results indicate that these factors have different effects on the amount of explanatory effort given in justifications for rewards versus punishment. This finding suggests that TC residents use rewards and punishment to build and enact different kinds of relationships with their peers, supporting recent arguments advanced by TC scholars.

Using two online vignette experiments, Chapter 4 considers how third-party evaluations change when punishers mention specific social actors when justifying punishment. These experiments measured participants’ evaluations of punishers who mentioned themselves, a friend, a stranger, or a collective when justifying their actions. Results show that observers evaluate punishers more positively when punishers offer justifications that mention collectives rather than themselves. Punishers who reference individuals other than themselves also receive more positive evaluations, though this finding requires further investigation. Additional results show that people generally prefer punishment for norm violations that affect broader groups rather than specific individuals. However, this preference appears to have no effect on how third parties evaluate punishers based on whom they mention in justifications.

Overall findings from this dissertation contribute to research on cooperation, punishment, and “metanorms” surrounding the propriety of peer punishment. Findings from select chapters make additional contributions to other areas of inquiry, including sociological theories of accounts and justifications and clinical research on therapeutic communities as a form of addiction treatment. These contributions are discussed in detail in their respective chapters, as well as in the concluding piece of this dissertation.