Clark Cory J, Baumeister Roy F, Ditto Peter H
Florida State University, Department of Psychology, 1107 West Call Street, Tallahassee, FL 32306-4301, USA; University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, Department of Psychology, Park Hall Room 204, Buffalo, NY 14260-4110, USA; University of California, Irvine, Department of Psychology and Social Behavior, 4201 Social and Behavioral Sciences Gateway, Irvine, CA 92697-7085, USA.
Florida State University, Department of Psychology, 1107 West Call Street, Tallahassee, FL 32306-4301, USA; The University of Queensland, School of Psychology, Sir Fred Schonell Drive, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia.
Conscious Cogn. 2017 May;51:193-211. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2017.03.010. Epub 2017 Apr 5.
Punishing wrongdoers is beneficial for group functioning, but can harm individual well-being. Building on research demonstrating that punitive motives underlie free will beliefs, we propose that free will beliefs help justify punitive impulses, thus alleviating the associated distress. In Study 1, trait-level punitiveness predicted heightened levels of anxiety only for free will skeptics. Study 2 found that higher state-level incarceration rates predicted higher mental health issue rates, only in states with citizens relatively skeptical about free will. In Study 3, participants who punished an unfair partner experienced greater distress than non-punishers, only when their partner did not have free choice. Studies 4 and 5 confirmed experimentally that punitive desires led to greater anxiety only when free will beliefs were undermined by an anti-free will argument. These results suggest that believing in free will permits holding immoral actors morally responsible, thus justifying punishment with diminished negative psychological consequences for punishers.
惩罚作恶者对群体运作有益，但可能损害个体幸福。基于表明惩罚动机是自由意志信念基础的研究，我们提出自由意志信念有助于为惩罚冲动提供正当理由，从而减轻相关困扰。在研究1中，特质层面的惩罚性仅对自由意志怀疑论者预测出更高水平的焦虑。研究2发现，州层面更高的监禁率仅在公民相对怀疑自由意志的州预测出更高的心理健康问题发生率。在研究3中，惩罚不公平伙伴的参与者比未惩罚者经历了更大的困扰，仅当他们的伙伴没有自由选择时。研究4和5通过实验证实，仅当自由意志信念被反自由意志论点削弱时，惩罚欲望才会导致更大的焦虑。这些结果表明，相信自由意志允许让不道德行为者承担道德责任，从而为惩罚提供正当理由，同时减少惩罚者的负面心理后果。
