Rewarding Violence Might Make Criminals Less Likely To Hurt Others

Police Mugshot Criminal

Subjects in an experimental group were granted a monetary bonus to punish others; however, being paid to punish made them less inclined to do so.

The Rady School of Management at UC San Diego is conducting research to see if providing incentives might reduce violence.

According to research from the Rady School of Management at the University of California, San Diego, individuals often harm others because they believe that violence is morally acceptable or even obligatory. As a consequence, they do not react logically to material benefits.

The research has ramifications for the criminal justice system, indicating that monetary penalties or incarceration may not be as effective deterrents as legislators expect.

“For a majority of offenders, it’s not worth the trouble to inflict harm purely from a place of cynical greed,” said psychologist Tage Rai, an assistant professor of management at the Rady School of Management and author of the study. “For example, as we are seeing with the January 6 hearings, many of the perpetrators of the attack on the Capitol believed the election had been stolen from them and that they were morally in the right to punish the congresspeople who had wronged them. Many of these people will be materially punished for their actions. What’s unclear is whether that would stop them from doing it again.”

The results of Rai’s research, which were reported in the journal Psychological Science, were based on several studies involving close to 1,500 study participants. When subjects in an experiment were reimbursed financially for punishing others, it actually reduced their likelihood of punishing others.

“Monetary gains may conflict with their perceived moral justifications,” Rai said. “People punish others to signal their own goodness and receiving compensation might make it seem as though they’re driven by greed rather than justice. However, I also find that if your peers tell you you’re still a good person even if you take the money, then you no longer have moral qualms about harming others for profit.”

Rai added, that to prevent criminal acts, lawmakers should leverage social pressure as well.

“When people are aware that they’re being judged negatively by their peers, they may find themselves more likely to question their claims of moral righteousness,” he said.

Much of Rai’s research seeks to understand violent behavior and how to prevent it. His previous studies as well as the book he co-authored Virtuous Violence reveal that most violent criminals have their own notions about what is right and wrong in a given situation.

Knowing that violent offenders often cite their own moral code as the reason why they hurt people, Rai wanted test this theory further by paying people to punish others in a lab experiment.

Across four different experiments in an online economic game, he found providing a monetary bonus for punishing a third party cut participants’ willingness to do so nearly in half.

“The findings suggest people may be more hesitant to do harm when they stand to profit from it if they anticipate condemnation from their peers,” Rai said.

In conclusion, he says understanding what draws people to violence is key to preventing it.

“If governments are trying to disincentive criminals, they should also aim to change the moral narratives criminals use to justify their actions,” Rai said.

Reference: “Material Benefits Crowd Out Moralistic Punishment” by Tage S. Rai, 29 April 2022, Psychological Science.
DOI: 10.1177%2F09567976211054786

4 Comments on "Rewarding Violence Might Make Criminals Less Likely To Hurt Others"

  1. IMHO, what is really/actually totally unjust & emotional attitude is “we should/must not execute violent criminals (like they did to their victims!) because it is barbaric!”!
    Punishment matching the crime is actually what is unemotional & perfectly logical/just/fair!
    (For example, notice/realize that countries respond to each other’s offenses by doing the same thing!
    For example, if one country over-increases import taxes against another then the other country does the same!)

    Also, if a tiny percentage of violent criminals are wrongfully convicted, is that mean we should/must let all of them go unpunished? Let them back into society?
    Did you know that many of them do violent crimes again, after being released from prison? Isn’t really job of the state to make sure the public is protected?

    Did you know that pretty much all prisons are overcrowded & filled w/ violent criminals who are getting free retirement using taxpayer money?

    Did you know that public actually wants/votes violent criminals to be executed but politicians refuse to do it (like in California)? How about respecting democracy? Democracy is not good if it do not go your way?

    By the way, what is justice really? How it is unjust to respond to violent criminals w/ the same/similar treatment that they did to their victims?

  2. Another way to fix the problem is to permanently remove them from society. Paying criminals? No thanks. Executing violent criminals? There you go. The modern progressive prison systems are an abject failure. It’s time to make prison hell again.

  3. Clyde Spencer | July 8, 2022 at 10:28 am | Reply

    Rewarding violent criminals for antisocial behavior seems counter-intuitive. Actually, I think that what they are saying is that at least some criminals have a modicum of morality and are subject to peer pressure. What is necessary is a way to appeal to that suppressed morality by increased peer pressure without rewarding them for their antisocial behavior. Religion probably helped with that goal, but in recent decades has declined in influence. Perhaps if movies and TV programs didn’t glorify violence, and punishment was applied swiftly and severely, that would help.

  4. Clyde Spencer | July 8, 2022 at 10:36 am | Reply

    “If governments are trying to disincentive criminals, they should also aim to change the moral narratives criminals use to justify their actions,”

    They are not justifying their actions, they are rationalizing them.

    Also, I think that the author is confusing politically-motivated demonstrations with theft and gratuitous violence stemming from suppressed anger.

    The author mentions the demonstrations at the Capitol January 6th. There was far less violence there than at the numerous “mostly peaceful” BLM demonstrations throughout the previous Summer. I don’t see this author as being completely objective.

Leave a comment

Email address is optional. If provided, your email will not be published or shared.