Altruistic punishment is connected to trait anger, not trait altruism, if compensation is available. Issue 11 (November 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Rodrigues, Johannes; Nagowski, Natalie; Mussel, Patrick; Hewig, Johannes
• Is Part Of: Heliyon. Volume 4:Issue 11(2018)
• Publication Date: 2018-11
• Subjects: Psychology; Research -- Periodicals; Medical sciences -- Periodicals; Natural history -- Periodicals; Social sciences -- Periodicals; Earth sciences -- Periodicals; Physical sciences -- Periodicals; 507.2
• DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2018.e00962
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2405-8440

Abstract

Abstract: Altruistic punishment and altruistic compensation are important concepts that are used to investigate altruism. However, altruistic punishment has been found to be correlated with anger. We were interested whether altruistic punishment and altruistic compensation are both driven by trait altruism and trait anger or whether the influence of those two traits is more specific to one of the behavioral options. We found that if the participants were able to apply altruistic compensation and altruistic punishment together in one paradigm, trait anger only predicts altruistic punishment and trait altruism only predicts altruistic compensation. Interestingly, these relations are disguised in classical altruistic punishment and altruistic compensation paradigms where participants can either only punish or compensate. Hence altruistic punishment and altruistic compensation paradigms should be merged together if one is interested in trait altruism without the confounding influence of trait anger.