The Relational Nature of Punishment: Responses To Close Versus Distant Others' Moral Transgressions

Abstract

How do people respond when a close other, as opposed to a distant other, commits a moral transgression against a third person? Across five preregistered experiments (total N = 2,170), supplemented by pilot studies, we find that people navigate punishment differently depending on relational closeness: they seek less punishment by authorities (institutional punishment) for close others but impose more punishment by themselves (relational punishment) and are more likely to confront the perpetrator directly (Experiments 1-5). Moreover, transgressions of close others elicit both other-blaming and self-blaming emotions, and they prompt individuals to adopt both victim and perpetrator roles (Experiments 2-5). These effects intensify with increasing relational closeness (Experiment 3) and persist across transgressions of varying moral and criminal severity (Experiment 4).