To punish or to support – our brain decides

When we encounter an injustice or a wrongdoing of some sort we immediately react either by punishing the wrongdoer or by compensating the victim.

How we perceive injustice is an important social value that affects outcomes to many disagreements – from small dinner table arguments to larger conflicts relating to culture and countries.

Despite the clear importance of our perception of injustice and how we react, very little is known about how the brain processes these violations.

The results suggest that the underlying neural mechanisms depend on whether one is directly affected by the injustice or is a third-party observer of the violation that is experienced by another.

Researchers combined methods from neuroscience, psychology, and economics to explore the neurobiological mechanisms involved in both the perception of injustice as well as the punishment and compensation decisions that follow.

Study participants played a game in which two players – a “taker” and a “partner” – each start with 200 chips.

The Taker can steal up to 100 chips from the Partner and then the Partner can retaliate by spending 100 chips to reduce the Taker’s stash by up to 300 chips.

Other participants played either as a Partner or an Observer. They could either punish the Taker or help the Partner by spending chips to increase the Partner’s supply of chips.

Before the study began the participants were randomly given a nasal spray where some participants received hormone oxytocin.

Oxytocin has been suggested to play a role in punishing behaviour.

The results suggest that the underlying neural mechanisms depend on whether one is directly affected by the injustice or is a third party observer of the violation that is experienced by another.

The researchers found that the participants were more willing to punish the Taker when they experienced the injustice directly as a Partner rather than as the third-party Observer.

The decision to punish was experienced in the anterior insula when the injustice was directly experienced while the amygdala was associated with punishment severity in third-party scenarios.

The researchers also found that the oxytocin group chose to give more frequent but less intense punishment almost similar to getting a ‘slap on the wrist’ kind of punishment.

These results provide us with an insight on how the brain functions when it is making decisions regarding punishment and compensation.

Clearly, our brain prefers to punish a wrongdoer more than support a victim.

Source: The Journal of Neuroscience