Subjective social class positively predicts altruistic punishment in economic games and real-life contexts

Abstract: Altruistic punishment means that people privately bear the cost to punish norm violators, although the punishment yields no material gain. The positive effects of altruistic punishment on cooperation and norm maintenance are well documented and the possible mechanisms underlying these effects have also been widely tested. However, an important issue remains underexplored: Does people’s social background influence their altruistic punitive behavior? If yes, how? This article uses four studies to test the relationship between altruistic punishment and social class, the psychological mechanisms underlying the relationship, as well as the boundary conditions.

Study 1 used the Chinese general social survey (2013) released by the National Survey Research Center at Renmin University of China to examine the relationship between altruistic punishment and social class. We selected two items as the dependent variables of Study 1 (D13: employees reported environmental pollution at their own cost; D23: employees retaliated against their foreign boss who insulted China). After screening the samples, a total of 4921 (for D13) and 4864 (for D23) valid data were obtained, respectively. Study 2 was a real-life event-based survey with 450 participants. In Study 2, we further investigated the relationship between social class and altruistic punishment under two forms (direct vs. indirect punishment). Study 3 was a 2 (social class: low/high) × 2 (punishment cost: low/high) between-participants design, and the main purpose was to demonstrate that punishment cost may play a moderating role in the process of how social class affects altruistic punishment. Based on the survey data, Study 4 proposed a conditional process model with belief in a just world as a mediating variable and punishment cost as a moderator variable, hereby providing a relatively complete explanatory framework for the impact of social class on altruistic punishment.

Study 1 showed that after controlling for educational level and annual income, participants’ subjective social class could significantly positively predict their altruistic punishment. Study 2 demonstrated that the above results hold in direct punishment, but not in indirect punishment. The results of Study 3 showed that when the punishment cost increases, punitive behavior decreases overall, but the downward trend is more pronounced for lower-class participants. The results of Study 4 further demonstrated that social class affects altruistic punishment indirectly mainly through belief in a just world when punishment cost is low, whereas social class directly affects altruistic punishment when punishment cost is high.

To sum up, we have found evidence that high social class (vs. low social class) individuals are more willing to engage in altruistic punishment in economic games and real-life contexts, implying that in an increasingly stratified modern society, people’s social background should not be ignored in the research of altruistic punishment. In addition, the results of this article also prove that on the one hand, altruistic punishment is at least partly a non-strategic sanction, because one force that drives people to punish is to protect their just belief, and on the other hand cost-benefit based considerations are not completely absent in altruistic punishment.