Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2024-02-02
Abstract： The existing literature on fertility has predominantly focused on analyzing objective factors at macro and micro levels, such as gender, age, income, family relationships, economic situation, and social structure, that impact an individual’s fertility intentions. However, an often overlooked yet equally significant factor lies in an individual’s perception of the social climate surrounding fertility. This factor encompasses attitudes and behaviors related to fertility displayed by similar others. This article presents five studies from a social cognitive perspective aimed at addressing the following questions: (1) How do individuals perceive the fertility attitudes and behaviors of others? (2) To what extent and in what manner does this perception influence an individual’s own fertility intentions? (3) How can we explain this relationship?
This paper presents a comprehensive investigation comprising five studies that focus on individuals born between 1995 and 2005. In Studies 2a, 2b, and 3, we specifically targeted childless individuals. The key variables under examination included perceptions of fertility attitudes, operationalized as individuals’ judgments of the desired family size; perceptions of fertility behaviors, proxied by individuals’ judgments of the magnitude of change in China’s total fertility rate from 2021 to 2022; and fertility intentions, measured using a scale developed by the researchers. Study 1 involved a cross-sectional survey with 904 participants, of which 735 had never given birth. The primary aim of Study 1 was to gain initial insights into how individuals perceive the attitudes/behaviors of others and how these perceptions relate to their own fertility intentions. Studies 2a and 2b utilized experimental designs to establish a causal relationship between the perception of others’ fertility attitudes/behaviors and one’s own fertility intentions. In contrast, Study 3, a three-round longitudinal survey, sought to investigate whether fertility efficacy and perceived responsibility could explain the observed relationships. Lastly, Study 4 represents a single-paper meta-analysis that focuses on effect sizes for the key findings derived from the studies in this paper.
The main results can be summarized as follows: (1) Childless participants consistently displayed a tendency to underestimate others’ fertility attitudes/behaviors, whereas participants who had given birth in Study 1 exhibited an overly optimistic view of others’ fertility attitudes/behaviors. (2) The underestimation of others’ fertility attitudes/behaviors had a consistent suppressive effect on participants’ own fertility intentions. (3) Overly pessimistic views of others’ fertility attitudes/behaviors significantly reduced participants’ fertility efficacy in successfully pursuing fertility, as well as their perception of fertility as a family and social responsibility. Both of these factors, in turn, contributed to a reduction in fertility intentions, with the effect of fertility efficacy being more pronounced. (4) Notably, all key findings exhibited effect sizes ranging from small to moderate, highlighting the nuanced nature of these relationships.
The above findings have significant theoretical and practical implications. Firstly, the results suggest that perceptions of the social climate regarding fertility play a crucial role in an individual’s fertility decisions. Consequently, solely focusing on objective factors may not yield a comprehensive understanding of the intricate processes influencing fertility decisions, thereby bridging a gap in the existing literature. Secondly, the findings imply that a social norms approach can effectively address biased perceptions of others’ attitudes/behaviors toward fertility. By doing so, this approach contributes to bolstering fertility intentions, presenting a valuable complement to current policies that primarily emphasize economic factors.
Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： The altruistic punishment is proposed as an important mechanism for the existence of social norms. The motives for punishing altruistically, however, are not entirely altruistic from the individual perspective. In addition to maintaining the principle of fairness, the pursuit of a good reputation, the aversion of potential losses, or the elimination of negative emotions also drive, to varying degrees, altruistic punishment. In addition, the sensitivity to the amount and form of sanction costs also shows that strategic motivations based on the cost-benefit principle play a significant role in driving altruistic punishment. Further exploration of the interaction between different motivations in the implementation of altruistic punishment is an important issue that deserves more attention in the future research.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
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 an explanatory framework for the impact of social class on altruistic punishment. Study 1 showed that after controlling for educational attainment and annual income, participants’ subjective social class significantly positively predicts 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 upper-class (vs. lower-class) individuals are more willing to engage in altruistic punishment in economic games and real-life contexts, implying that in a modern society increasingly stratified along class lines, 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.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2022-07-06
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.
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Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2021-11-24
Abstract： Punishment decisions might be guided by the norm of punishment, that is, people will implement their own punishment according to perceived prevalence of punishment in a similar social midst. However, there may be differences between an individual’s perception of norms and actual norms, which is called normative misperception. This article uses four experiments to explore the existence, the direction, and the cause of the normative misperception in third-party punishment, as well as its influence on people’s own punitive behaviors. In Experiment 1, 449 participants were randomized in a four group factorial design (punishing before estimating, estimating before punishing, punishing only, and estimating only). Experiment 1 consisted of 6 rounds of dictator game, in which participants made punishment decisions for 6 offers and/or estimated the average punishment level of other participants in each offer. Experiment 2 aimed to establish the causal relationship between the normative misperception and the punishment by directly manipulating the normative misperception. Specifically, 134 participants were randomly divided into the overestimation group and underestimation group. After receiving the feedback, participants made punishment decision for an unfair offer and estimated the level of punishment of others in this offer. The purpose of Experiment 3 was to test the model of belief in a just world (BJW)-normative misperception-punishment, as well as the moderating effect of perceived social distance (PSD), with a within-participants design involving 164 participants. The procedure was similar to that of Experiment 1, except that we measured participants’ BJW and PSD before and after the game, respectively. In Experiment 4, we manipulated participants’ BJW through reading materials to test the causal relationship between BJW and the normative misperception. The results of Experiment 1 showed that there is an underestimated normative misperception in third-party punishment, which leads to a lower level of punishment. Experiment 2 proved that there exists a causal relationship between the normative misperception and punishment by directly manipulating the independent variables. Experiment 3 demonstrated that BJW might be an underlying cause of the normative misperception, while PSD moderates the effect of BJW on the normative misperception. Finally, Experiment 4 showed the causal relationship between BJW and the normative misperception, providing additional evidence to the results of Experiment 3. To sum up, we have found evidence of normative misperception in third-party punishment through 4 experiments. This underestimated misperception might be affected by dual reference points: BJW (internal) and PSD (external). It also shows to a certain extent that third-party punishment is a norm-maintaining behavior rather than a gain-based strategic behavior. "
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology Subjects: Psychology >> Management Psychology Subjects: Psychology >> Applied Psychology submitted time 2021-04-02
Abstract： Normative misperception refers to the cognitive bias between an individual’s normative perception and people’s true views of the behaviors or attitudes of others. The occurrence of normative misperception has been proven to be universal, and it occurs when people mistakenly estimate the benefit of a certain attitude and/or behavior. Scholars have begun to draw on normative misperception to explain humans’ social behavior. However, whether different types of norm misperception (behavioral vs. attitudinal misperception) have different effects on behavior, and whether different normative information (descriptive vs. injunctive normative information) diverges in alleviating the normative misperception and its influence on behavior remain unclear. We also ask whether the theory of impression management could be applied to normative misperception in exploring the psychological mechanism underlying its impact on behavior. The current study aims to address these issues with food waste in dining out as the target behavior. Study 1 was a correlational study based a survey carried out among residents from six provinces situated in the western, central, and eastern regions of China. We measured the independent variables (behavioral misperception and attitudinal misperception), dependent variable (food wasting behavior during the most recent eating out), and mediators (three dimensions of impression evaluation: sociability, morality, and competence) with scales developed in previous literature. After excluding outliers and participants who failed the attention check question, we collected 957 valid data. In study 2, two two-factorial experiments (descriptive normative vs. non-normative information in experiment 1; injunctive normative vs. non-normative information in experiment 2) were conducted to test the effects of descriptive (injunctive) normative information on behavioral (attitudinal) misperception. We also ran bootstrap analysis separately for each set of data to determine the relationship among normative information, misperception, impression evaluation, and food wasting behavior. The results of study 1 showed that participants tended to overestimate others’ food waste and their approval of wasteful behavior, and both misperceptions had significant positive effects on food waste, implying that these misperceptions not only exist, but also promote people’s food wasting behavior further. The t-test revealed a greater effect on attitudinal misperception as opposed to behavioral misperception on food waste. In addition, as speculated, the sociability dimension of impression evaluation mediated the relationship between both misperceptions and wasteful behavior, whereas the mediating role of morality and competence were not significant. In other words, because participants overestimated others’ wasteful behavior and their degree of approval, they worried that being too economical in public might be considered as being stingy or indecent, and this worry further bred wasteful behavior. Study 2 confirmed the difference between the mechanisms underlying the two types of normative information: descriptive normative information reduced the behavioral misperception itself, creating a new normative perception among the participants and prompting them to switch from complying with the original norm (people generally waste food) to adhering to the new one (people’s wasteful behavior is not as common as imagined), which mitigated misperception’s negative effect on wasteful behavior. On the contrary, injunctive normative information did not decrease the attitudinal misperception itself but rather moderated the relationship between the misperception and behavior: misperception still existed, but its prescriptive power declined. The findings of this study highlight the importance of considering the distinction between the two types of normative misperception in social norm campaigns, and suggest two possible ways of correcting people’s normative misperception: providing descriptive normative information to decrease people’s behavioral misperception and providing injunctive normative information to ameliorate attitudinal misperception’s detrimental effect on behavior. "
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology Subjects: Psychology >> Management Psychology Subjects: Psychology >> Applied Psychology submitted time 2021-03-04
Abstract： A large body of experimental evidence demonstrates that in presence of third-party punishers, cooperators can gain higher payoffs than defectors. As a result, third-party punishment (TPP) that changes the payoff structure of defectors is believed to be a key in promoting cooperation. However, this rationale is contrary to an important finding in behavioral economics: individuals are not necessarily rational decision makers and do not have purely self-regarding preferences. This contradiction raises an interesting question: can this finding also be applied to defectors? We aim to explore this question through three experiments. In Experiment 1, 240 undergraduates participated in a Public Goods Game and were divided randomly into three conditions: control condition (CC), low defection cost condition (LC), and high defection cost condition (HC). In each round of the game, participants in CC decided whether to contribute 10 tokens from the initial endowment to the public account. All the tokens contributed to the public account were doubled and evenly allocated to all group members. Participants who retained 10 tokens needed to pay a tax of 1 token. The procedures in LC and HC were identical to that in CC. An exception is that in LC and HC, independent punishers could discipline defectors by paying 5 tokens to reduce the payoff of defectors by 1 token in LC and 10 tokens in HC. In Experiment 2, 179 participants who defected in Stage 1 were selected as sample in Stage 2 and were divided randomly into two conditions: CC (89 participants) and punishment condition (PC, 90 participants). Participants in PC were told they had been punished in Stage 1, whereas those in CC received no feedback. All participants’ levels of norm activation and cooperation in different games were then measured. Experiment 2 was replicated in Experiment 3, where the participants were not game players but spectators, and their levels of norm activation and cooperation were measured before and after the game. The participants in defection condition observed a defection and the consequent punishment, whereas those in norm condition observed a fair offer and no punishment. In Experiment 1, the defection cost in LC was lower than that in CC, so participants in LC had a stronger incentive to defect. However, the results revealed a significantly higher cooperation level in LC. A plausible explanation is that the defection cost in form of punishment served as a norm reminder, but cost in form of tax lacked this function, implying that even defectors are not necessarily benefit maximizers. The results of Experiment 2 confirmed this explanation: compared with unpunished defectors, the punished ones manifested a higher level of norm activation. The bootstrap analysis showed that the norm activation completely mediated TPP and cooperation. Experiment 2 also found a spillover effect of TPP: the punished defectors still demonstrated a high cooperation in a new different game where the sanction was absent. Finally, Experiment 3 found another spillover effect of TPP: bystanders who did not experience the punishment in person but witnessed it showed a significantly higher cooperation in subsequent interactions. In conclusion, oftentimes, people defect simply because they are unaware of the existence of a certain norm, and activating people’s norms through TPP can significantly reduce their selfish behaviors. In addition to being an economic means to reduce defectors’ payoff, TPP serves as a norm reminder. The two spillover effects found in this study suggest that TPP as a means of norm activation may be more efficient than as an economic means because of its cost-effectiveness. These findings shed new light on the understanding of extensive cooperation among genetically unrelated individuals. "
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology Subjects: Psychology >> Management Psychology submitted time 2020-09-12
Abstract： Third-party punishment (TPP) provides a theoretical explanation to the extensive cooperation among genetically unrelated individuals but also raises a second-order free-riding problem. To solve this challenge, some researchers have proposed the reputational benefits of TPP as a potential explanation. That is, given the positive reputation derived from the punishment, the probability that the punisher would be helped in the future is enhanced. However, a growing body of literature has suggested that punishers’ reputation (PR) is not necessarily positive. Three reasons underlying the contradictory findings regarding PR may exist in the existing literature. Previous research a) views reputation as a uni-dimensional variable that is simply negative or positive, b) fails to take into account punishment motives, and c) only considers financial punishment and overlooks the existence of other forms of punishment. A series of experiments were conducted to answer the main research questions raised in the current study: a) Does TPP have different effects on the two dimensions of PR (experiment 1)? b) Does the attribution of punishment motives (APM) significantly affect PR (experiment 2)? c) Do financial and social punishment diverge on the effects on PR (experiments 2 and 3)? All these experiments used the dictator game as the experimental paradigm, in which the dictator received an initial endowment and decided to what extent she/he wanted to split this endowment with the recipient, and the observer (financially or socially) punished the dictator for an offer she/he deemed unfair. In experiments 1 and 2, every participant played each role at the same time in random order. In experiment 3, the participants just observed the game. After being presented with the performance of their partners (experiments 1 and 2) or the actors (experiment 3), the participants were asked to rate their reputation using a seven-point Likert scale consisting of six items and attribute punishment motives using a seven-point Likert scale with self-focused or group-focused anchors. The results of experiment 1 showed that TPP generally reduced participants’ evaluation of PR in the warmth dimension and improved their evaluation in the competence dimension. Moreover, the punishment deemed that group-focused anchors could further improve the positive impact of TPP on competence while ameliorating its negative impact on warmth. The results of experiment 2 revealed that participants relied to a large extent on the cooperation level of punishers to determine whether their punishments were group-focused or self-focused, thus affecting their evaluation of PR. Moreover, with the option of social punishment available, financial punishment significantly reduced the evaluation of PR in terms of warmth regardless of their punishment motives, but the evaluation in terms of competence was quite different. In the absence of social punishment, financial punishment improved the evaluation of PR. Otherwise, financial punishment reduced its evaluation. This finding was partially replicated in experiment 3, which further demonstrated by examining the interaction between APM and punishment forms that the APM moderated the effects of the two types of punishment on PR. When deemed self-focused, the financial punishment reduced participants’ evaluation of PR in the warmth dimension significantly more than the social punishment. When viewed as group-focused, financial punishment enhanced participants’ evaluation of PR in the competence dimension significantly less than social punishment. In conclusion, this study found evidence that, when considering the impact of TPP on PR, considering the motives underlying punishment and viewing reputation as a multi-dimensional construct is necessary, implying that the reputational benefits of punishing cannot fully explain the selective advantages of TPP and that other factors must have contributed to the selection and diffusion of TPP in evolution. "
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology Subjects: Psychology >> Management Psychology submitted time 2020-08-08
Abstract： The altruistic punishment is proposed as an important mechanism for the existence of social norms. The motives for punishing altruistically, however, are not entirely altruistic from the individual perspective. In addition to maintaining the principle of fairness, the pursuit of a good reputation, the aversion of potential losses, or the elimination of negative emotions also drive, to varying degrees, altruistic punishment. In addition, the sensitivity to the amount and form of sanction costs also shows that strategic motivations based on the cost-benefit principle play a significant role in driving altruistic punishment. Further exploration of the interaction between different motivations in the implementation of altruistic punishment is an important issue that deserves more attention in the future research.
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