Radkani Setayesh, Tenenbaum Joshua B, Saxe Rebecca
Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2025 Aug 12;122(32):e2500730122. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2500730122. Epub 2025 Aug 4.
Authorities, from parents of toddlers to leaders of formal institutions, use punishment to communicate disapproval and enforce social norms. Ideally, from whether and how severely a transgression is punished, targets and observers infer shared social norms. Yet in light of every punitive choice, observers also evaluate the motives and legitimacy of the authority. Here, we show that the effects of punishment can only be understood by considering these inferences simultaneously. We measured human observers' joint inferences empirically in three preregistered experiments ([Formula: see text]) and developed a rational Bayesian model using an inverse planning framework that captures and explains these inferences and their interactions quantitatively and parsimoniously. When people have different priors about norms or authorities, the model predicted and we experimentally confirmed that observing punishment by the authority can sustain polarization. This work reveals the rational logic behind how people learn from punishment and a key constraint on the function of punishment in establishing shared social norms.
从蹒跚学步儿童的父母到正规机构的领导者，权威人士都使用惩罚来表达不满并执行社会规范。理想情况下，通过违规行为是否受到惩罚以及惩罚的严厉程度，目标对象和观察者可以推断出共同的社会规范。然而，鉴于每一个惩罚性选择，观察者也会评估权威的动机和正当性。在这里，我们表明，只有同时考虑这些推断，才能理解惩罚的效果。我们在三个预先注册的实验（[公式：见正文]）中通过实证测量了人类观察者的联合推断，并使用逆规划框架开发了一个理性贝叶斯模型，该模型以定量且简洁的方式捕捉并解释了这些推断及其相互作用。当人们对规范或权威有不同的先验观念时，该模型预测并经我们实验证实，观察权威的惩罚会加剧两极分化。这项工作揭示了人们如何从惩罚中学习的理性逻辑，以及惩罚在建立共同社会规范功能方面的一个关键限制。
