Abstract
Although the criminal justice system is designed around the idea that individuals are invariant in their responses to punishment, research indicates that individuals exhibit a tremendous amount of variability in their punishment sensitivity. This raises the question of why; what are the individual- and situation-level variables that impact a person’s sensitivity to punishment? In the current research, we synthesize theory and research on inflammation, learning, and evolutionary biology to examine the relationship between inflammatory activity and sensitivity to punishment. These theories combine to predict that inflammatory activity – which is metabolically costly and reflects a context in which the net payoff associated with future oriented behaviors is diminished – will decrease sensitivity to punishment, but not rewards. Consistent with this hypothesis, Study 1 found that in U.S. states with a higher infectious disease burden (a proxy for average levels of inflammatory activity) exhibit harsher sentencing in their criminal justice systems. Studies 2 and 3 experimentally manipulated variables known to impact bodily inflammatory activity and measured subsequent punishment and reward sensitivity using a probabilistic selection task. Results revealed that (a) increasing inflammation (i.e., completing the study in a dirty vs. clean room) diminished punishment sensitivity (Study 2), whereby (b) administering a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, suppressing inflammatory activity, enhanced it. No such changes were found for reward sensitivity. Together, these results provide evidence of a link between the activities of the immune system and punishment sensitivity, which may have implications for criminal justice outcomes.
Highlights
Learning about the consequences of one’s actions and using this knowledge to maximize rewards and avoid threats is critical to survival and reproduction (Bouton, 2007; Balleine, 2011; JeanRichard-Dit-Bressel et al, 2018)
Results revealed that higher infectious disease burden predicted higher rates of violent crime, β = 0.31, SE = 0.16, t = 2.00, p = 0.045, 95% credibility intervals (CIs) = [0.05, 0.49], R2 = 0.10, but not property crime, β = 0.14, SE = 0.16, t = 0.93, p = 0.35, 95% CI = [-0.19, 0.40], R2 = 0.02, or other crime, β = −0.10, SE = 0.12, t = −0.78, p = 0.44, 95% CI = [−0.35, 0.21], R2 = 0.01
Based on insights from research in psychoneuroimmunology (Maier and Watkins, 1998; Banks, 2005; Dantzer and Kelley, 2007; Lasselin et al, 2017; Draper et al, 2018), and risk-sensitive foraging theory (RSFT) (Real and Caraco, 1986; Lima and Dill, 1990; Houston, 1991; McNamara and Houston, 1992), we predicted that punishment sensitivity would decrease in contexts where inflammation is elevated and increase when inflammatory activity is diminished
Summary
Learning about the consequences of one’s actions and using this knowledge to maximize rewards and avoid threats is critical to survival and reproduction (Bouton, 2007; Balleine, 2011; JeanRichard-Dit-Bressel et al, 2018). This fundamental process, often referred to as instrumental (or operant) conditioning, involves increasing or decreasing the frequency of behaviors that have been previously reinforced (i.e., that are followed by reward) or punished (i.e., that are followed by Inflammation and Punishment Sensitivity an adverse outcome), respectively (Thorndike, 1898; Skinner, 1963; Staddon and Cerutti, 2003; Bouton, 2007). Understanding the factors that contribute to differences in punishment sensitivity delineates an important area for research into human psychological functioning in both clinical and non-clinical populations
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