Social hierarchies in third-party punishment: A behavioral and ERP study

Third-party punishment refers to the punishment imposed by a party whose benefit is not directly affected by any norm violations. The present study using a modified Dictator Game explored how social statuses of the involved parties modulate punishment decisions of a third-party. Systematic manipulation of the dictators' and recipients' status revealed that: higher recipient status correlated with more severe punishment, but no effect of the dictator's. We further focused on the neural underlying of this effect using ERPs. An interaction of recipient's status × fairness was observed on MFN such that only for a high-status recipient, larger amplitude was triggered by unfair offers comparing to fair offers. On LPC, the largest amplitude was observed when the offer was fair and the recipient had medium-status. These findings suggested: participants consider unfair offers proposed to high-status recipients as more norm-violating and they may evaluate the offers from the perspective of the recipient.