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Updated: Oct 17, 2025

Studying Food Reward and Motivation in Humans
Published on: March 19, 2014
Reward, punishment, and prosocial behavior: Recent developments and implications
Junhui Wu1, Shenghua Luan1, Nichola Raihani2
1CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China; Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China.
Abstract:
Reward and punishment change the payoff structures of social interactions and therefore can potentially play a role in promoting prosocial behavior. Yet, there are boundary conditions for them to be effective. We review recent work that addresses the conditions under which rewards and punishment can enhance prosocial behavior, the proximate and ultimate mechanisms for individuals' rewarding and punishing decisions, and the reputational and behavioral consequences of reward and punishment under noise. The reviewed evidence points to the importance of more field research on how reward and punishment can promote prosocial behavior in real-world settings. We also highlight the need to integrate different methodologies to better examine the effects of reward and punishment on prosocial behavior.
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