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The Role of Structure-Seeking in Moral Punishment

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Abstract

Four studies (total N = 1586) test the notion that people are motivated to punish moral rule violators because punishment offers a way to obtain structure and order in the world. First, in a correlational study, increased need for structure was associated with the stronger endorsement punishment for moral rule violators. This relationship between need for structure and punishment was not driven by political conservatism. Three experimental studies then tested, and corroborated, our main causal hypotheses: that threats to structure increase punitive judgments for moral rule violators (i.e., a compensatory mechanism; Study 2) and that a lack of punishment for wrongdoing (relative to punishment for wrongdoing) makes the world seem less structured in the moment (Studies 3 and 4). We compare and contrast our structure-based account of moral punishment to other theories and findings across the punishment literature.

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Notes

  1. Neuberg and Newsom (1993) originally created a 12-item scale, but they recommended dropping one item from their scale (“I enjoy being spontaneous”). We followed their recommendation. Other research using this personal need for structure scale has also followed this recommendation (e.g., Friesen et al., 2014; Ma, Axt, & Kay, 2019; Ma et al., 2023; Stanley & Kay, 2022; Stanley, Marsh, & Kay, 2020).

  2. We realized after the fact that the language used in describing our hypothesis in the preregistration was too vague regarding the expected direction of the relationship. The language for the hypothesis in the main manuscript is clearer about directionality than the language in the preregistration. For transparency, we thought it important to note this discrepancy between the language in the preregistration and the language in the main manuscript.

  3. The percentage of participants failing the first check based on the memory cue manipulation was higher than we anticipated. This could be indicative of the narrowness and specificity of the memory cues we employed.

  4. We also computed the same statistical test while including in the analysis all participants who failed the memory manipulation check question. Note that four participants who failed the memory manipulation check also failed the attention check at the end. Including participants who failed the memory manipulation check question (but not the attention check question at the end), participants in the punishment condition (M = 4.68, SD = 1.13) reported that their worlds seemed more structured than participants in the no punishment condition (M = 4.47, SD = 1.35), but this effect did not reach the threshold for statistical significance (Mdiff = .21, SEdiff = .13; t(392) = 1.68, p = .094, 95% CI for Mdiff = [-.04, .46], d = .17).

  5. We also computed the same statistical test while including in the analysis all participants who failed the memory manipulation check question. Note that two participants who failed the memory manipulation check also failed the attention check at the end. Including participants who failed the memory manipulation check question (but not the attention check question at the end), participants in the punishment condition (M = 4.55, SD = .93) reported that their worlds seemed significantly more structured than participants in the no punishment condition (M = 4.32, SD = 1.02; Mdiff = .23, SEdiff = .10; t(411) = 2.39, p = .017, 95% CI for Mdiff = [.04, .42], d = .24).

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Acknowledgements

The authors declared that they had no conflicts of interest with respect to their authorship or the publication of this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, 100 Fuqua Drive, Durham, NC, 27708, USA

    Matthew L. Stanley

  2. Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Shenyang Huang

  3. Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Elizabeth J. Marsh

  4. Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Aaron C. Kay

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Appendix

Appendix

Moral Rules

  1. 1.

    People should never commit adultery

  2. 2.

    People should always honor their commitments

  3. 3.

    People should always treat others fairly

  4. 4.

    People should never harm other humans

  5. 5.

    People should never intentionally mislead others

  6. 6.

    People should never extort others

  7. 7.

    People should never steal anything that does not belong to them

  8. 8.

    People should always take responsibility for their mistakes

  9. 9.

    People should always care for their children

  10. 10.

    People should never take advantage of others

  11. 11.

    People should never damage property that does not belong to them

  12. 12.

    People should never threaten to harm others

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Stanley, M.L., Huang, S., Marsh, E.J. et al. The Role of Structure-Seeking in Moral Punishment. Soc Just Res 36, 410–431 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11211-023-00416-8

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