The Role of Offender Identifiability in Second- and Third-Party Punishmentuse asterix (*) to get italics

Theresa Blanke, Mathias TwardawskiPlease use the format "First name initials family name" as in "Marie S. Curie, Niels H. D. Bohr, Albert Einstein, John R. R. Tolkien, Donna T. Strickland"

2024

<p>The identifiability effect describes humans' tendency to exhibit different emotional and behavioral responses toward identified as compared to anonymous individuals. This phenomenon has been extensively studied within the identifiable victim effect, hypothesizing that people display more helping behavior when faced with an identified as compared to an anonymous individual in need. By contrast, research on the influence of offender identifiability on the perception and treatment of offenders is relatively scarce and has found mixed results. Specifically, some studies show negative consequences of offender identifiability for offenders (e.g., stronger punishment); whereas other studies found positive consequences for offenders (e.g., weaker punishment). In the present study, we aim to investigate whether the consequences of identifiability (vs. anonymity) of the offender may vary depending on the punisher’s role in the initial offense. We hypothesize that offender identifiability leads to stronger punishment for offenders when punishment is imposed by the initial victim. By contrast, offender identifiability should lead to weaker punishment when punishment is imposed by an uninvolved third party. To investigate this, we propose an online vignette study in which participants read about an offense (a) in which they were either the affected victim themselves (second party) or uninvolved and only learned about the offense (third party) and (b) in which the offender is either identified or unidentified. Following this, participants will indicate their intentions to punish, as well as their levels of empathy, moral outrage, and attribution of blame towards the offender.</p>

Offender Identifiability, Second-Party Punishment, Third-Party Punishment, Offender Empathy, Moral Outrage, Offender Blaming

NonePlease indicate the methods that may require specialised expertise during the peer review process (use a comma to separate various required expertises).

Social sciences

Rajarshi Majumder suggested: I have a working paper with Gilad and Ignazio on identified victim effects, and they are experts on social psychology. , Rajarshi Majumder suggested: Gild Feldman , Rajarshi Majumder suggested: gfeldman@hku.hk , Rajarshi Majumder suggested: Ignazio Ziano , Rajarshi Majumder suggested: ignazio.ziano@unige.ch

e.g. John Doe john@doe.com

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2024-03-23 11:02:30

Clare Conry-Murray

Gilad Feldman, Rajarshi Majumder