About this session

Thursday, 1:40 PM - 3:10 PM

The development of punishment: How do children understand, deliver, and learn from punishment?

Children not only recognize punishment's importance in upholding norms but also actively engage in punitive behaviors to enforce cooperation. However, important questions remain about the robustness of these findings, such as whether punishment behavior emerges across cultures and persists when other options for rectifying injustice are available. Further, while most studies focused on children's punitive behavior, other aspects of punishment (e.g., punishment as a cause of emotional reactions or norm learning) have been under-studied.
The goal of this symposium is to provide a comprehensive, cross-cultural understanding of how children develop and conceptualize punishment, using samples from seven countries and a broad age range (5- to 14-year-olds).
Paper 1 explores punishment as children’s behavioral response to wrongdoing. It shows that while children engage in punitive behaviors, environmental factors like community size play less of a role in the development of punishment behavior.
Paper 2 focuses on forgiveness as an alternative response to wrongdoing, demonstrating that children consider factors such as cost and apology, opting to forgive rather than punish in certain contexts.
Paper 3 examines children's reactions to unfair punishment, highlighting their sensitivity to fairness and their ability to attribute complex emotions to transgressors who are punished or escape punishment.
Paper 4 addresses punishment as a source of information for socio-moral norms, revealing that children learn new norms by observing legitimate authorities' punishment.
Together, these studies offer a multifaceted overview of how children conceptualize punishment, introducing different aspects across cultures and developmental stages.

Paper #1
Title	Does the emergence of third-party punishment co-vary with community size?
Presenting author	Dr. Julia Marshall, Ph.D., Boston College, United States

Paper #2
Title	How Do Children Behave Towards Transgressions? -the Choice between Third-Party Punishment, Forgiveness, and Non-Intervention
Presenting author	Rizu Toda, Osaka Uniersity, Japan

Paper #3
Title	Getting away with it: Does it feel good not to be punished?
Presenting author	Dr. Katarzyna Myslinska Szarek, University of Michigan, University SWPS in Poland, United States, Poland

Paper #4
Title	Children learn what is right or wrong selectively from a legitimate authority’s punishment
Presenting author	Young-eun Lee, MIT, United States

View all paper details

Session chairs
Dr. Katarzyna Myslinska Szarek, University of Michigan, University SWPS in Poland, United States; Young-eun Lee, , United States

⇦ Back to schedule