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Preschool children and chimpanzees incur costs to watch punishment of antisocial others

Mendes, N; Steinbeis, N; Bueno-Guerra, N; Call, J; Singer, T; (2018) Preschool children and chimpanzees incur costs to watch punishment of antisocial others. Nature Human Behaviour , 2 pp. 45-51. 10.1038/s41562-017-0264-5. Green open access

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Abstract

When misfortune befalls another, humans may feel distress, leading to a motivation to escape. When such misfortune is perceived as justified, however, it may be experienced as rewarding and lead to motivation to witness the misfortune. We explored when in human ontogeny such a motivation emerges and whether the motivation is shared by chimpanzees. Chimpanzees and four- to six-year-old children learned through direct interaction that an agent was either prosocial or antisocial and later saw each agent’s punishment. They were given the option to invest physical effort (chimpanzees) or monetary units (children) to continue watching. Chimpanzees and six-year-olds showed a preference for watching punishment of the antisocial agent. An additional control experiment in chimpanzees suggests that these results cannot be attributed to more generic factors such as scene coherence or informational value seeking. This indicates that both six-year-olds and chimpanzees have a motivation to watch deserved punishment enacted.

Type: Article
Title: Preschool children and chimpanzees incur costs to watch punishment of antisocial others
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-017-0264-5
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0264-5
Language: English
Additional information: This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions.
Keywords: prosocial, antisocial, motivation to watch deserved punishment, chimpanzees, children
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Clinical, Edu and Hlth Psychology
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10044761
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