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Abstract
Punishment in economic games has been interpreted as "altruistic." However, it was shown that punishment is related to trait anger instead of trait altruism in a third-party dictator game if compensation is also available. Here, we investigated the influence of state anger on punishment and compensation in the third-party dictator game. Therefore, we used movie sequences for emotional priming, including the target states anger, happy, and neutral. We measured the Feedback-Related Negativity (FRN) and midfrontal theta band activation, to investigate an electro-cortical correlate of the processing of fair and unfair offers. Also, we assessed single-trial FRN and midfrontal theta band activation as a predictor for punishment and compensation. We found that punishment was linked to state anger. Midfrontal theta band activation, which has previously been linked to altruistic acts and cognitive control, predicted less punishment. Additionally, trait anger led to enhanced FRN for unfair offers. This led to the interpretation that the FRN depicts the evaluation of fairness, while midfrontal theta band activation captures an aspect of cognitive control and altruistic motivation. We conclude that we need to redefine "altruistic punishment" into "costly punishment," as no direct link of altruism and punishment is given. Additionally, midfrontal theta band activation complements the FRN and offers additional insights into complex responses and decision processes, especially as a single trial predictor.
Highlights
Altruistic behavior, the voluntary action intended to benefit another person without the expectancy of receiving external rewards or avoiding external punishments (Eisenberg & Miller, 1987), can have many motives
This is in line with the finding that the Feedback-Related Negativity (FRN) or reward positivity (Rew-P) is dependent on the best outcome of the trials and not the best outcome that is available at the moment (Kujawa et al, 2013)
We showed that punishment in a third-party dictator game is linked to state anger and it is not related to trait altruism
Summary
Altruistic behavior, the voluntary action intended to benefit another person without the expectancy of receiving external rewards or avoiding external punishments (Eisenberg & Miller, 1987), can have many motives. | 2 of 18 the definition of altruistic acts for “an action that is voluntary, intended to benefit another person, driven by this motivation to help the other person to at least 50% (in order to avoid the domination of other motives like public reputation, see e.g., Carlo & Randall, 2002; Rodrigues et al, 2017) and is benevolent, meaning that there is no intention of harming other persons during the process of helping” (Rodrigues, Nagowski, et al, 2018) Following this more narrow definition of altruism, a behavioral phenomenon that is occurring in third-party dictator games, that is, the punishment of proposers making unfair offers (e.g., Brethel-Haurwitz, Stoycos, Cardinale, Huebner, & Marsh, 2016; Henrich et al, 2006), should not be labeled as “altruistic punishment” (Fehr & Gächter, 2002) if the intention to harm the proposer is the driving motive
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