Adolescents' Third-Party Punishment for Unfairness: Developmental Differences in Cognitive and Emotional Drivers

Xuemei Cheng; Chunli Wei; Xiaoli Ling

doi:10.70088/3f4gwr45

Authors

Xuemei Cheng School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Beijing Polytechnic University, Beijing, China Author
Chunli Wei Research Office, Shanghai Experimental School, Shanghai, China Author
Xiaoli Ling Department of Psychology, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, China Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.70088/3f4gwr45

Keywords:

adolescence, third-party punishment, fairness, anger, prosocial behavior, cognitive development

Abstract

Third-party punishment (TPP) serves as a fundamental prosocial behavior essential for upholding societal fairness norms. This study recruited 104 participants, systematically divided into early (11–13 years), middle (15–17 years), and late (18–21 years) adolescent cohorts, to investigate the developmental characteristics of TPP. Furthermore, it explored the divergent associations of perceived unfairness and anger with TPP across these distinct adolescent subgroups. The results demonstrated that TPP intensity was significantly influenced solely by the level of unfairness, with no significant differences observed across the various adolescent developmental stages. Unfairness ratings were positively correlated with age and escalated alongside the unfairness level. Similarly, anger ratings were positively correlated with age, increased with the severity of unfairness, and exhibited significant developmental variations: early adolescents reported substantially lower anger ratings than their middle and late counterparts under unfair scenarios, whereas no significant difference emerged between middle and late adolescents. Correlation analyses revealed distinct subgroup patterns: the TPP of early adolescents was exclusively positively correlated with anger; late adolescents' TPP demonstrated a strong positive correlation with both perceived unfairness and anger; conversely, middle adolescents exhibited no significant correlations between TPP and either factor. Ultimately, this study indicates that TPP for unfairness remains developmentally stable throughout adolescence, and this consistent external punitive behavior is fundamentally underpinned by maturing internal cognitive-emotional mechanisms. These findings significantly deepen our understanding of adolescent TPP developmental mechanisms and provide robust empirical evidence for cultivating prosocial, norm-based behaviors.

References

E. Fehr and U. Fischbacher, "Third-party punishment and social norms," Evolution and Human Behavior, vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 63–87, 2004.

J. Henrich, R. McElreath, A. Barr, et al., "Costly punishment across human societies," Science, vol. 312, no. 5781, pp. 1767–1770, 2006.

Y. Peng, L. Yan, Y. Chen, et al., "The development of third-party intervention in children aged 4-10: Balancing unfairness aversion and self-interest," Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, vol. 263, Art. no. 106417, 2026.

K. McAuliffe, J. J. Jordan, and F. Warneken, "Costly third-party punishment in young children," Cognition, vol. 134, pp. 1–10, 2015.

M. Gummerum and M. T. Chu, "Outcomes and intentions in children's, adolescents', and adults' second- and third-party punishment behavior," Cognition, vol. 133, no. 1, pp. 97–103, 2014.

X. Cheng, L. Zheng, Z. Liu, et al., "Punishment cost affects third-parties' behavioral and neural responses to unfairness," International Journal of Psychophysiology, vol. 177, pp. 27–33, 2022.

L. Steinberg, Adolescence, 11th ed. New York, NY, USA: McGraw-Hill Education, 2016.

S. Blakemore, "The social brain in adolescence," Nature Reviews Neuroscience, vol. 9, pp. 267–277, 2008.

S. Blakemore, "Imaging brain development: The adolescent brain," Neuroimage, vol. 61, no. 2, pp. 397–406, 2012.

B. Güroğlu, W. van den Bos, and E. A. Crone, "Fairness considerations: Increasing understanding of intentionality during adolescence," Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, vol. 104, no. 4, pp. 398–409, 2009.

E. Fehr and K. M. Schmidt, "A theory of fairness, competition, and cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 114, no. 3, pp. 817–868, 1999.

E. Fehr and S. Gächter, "Altruistic punishment in humans," Nature, vol. 415, no. 6868, pp. 137–140, 2002.

Z. Zhang, M. Li, Q. Liu, et al., "Group membership and adolescents' third-party punishment: a moderated chain mediation model," Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 14, Art. no. 1251276, 2023.

C. Civai, I. Huijsmans, and A. G. Sanfey, "Neurocognitive mechanisms of reactions to second- and third-party justice violations," Scientific Reports, vol. 9, no. 1, Art. no. 9271, 2019.

L. E. S. Hartsough, M. R. Ginther, and R. Marois, "Distinct affective responses to second- and third-party norm violations," Acta Psychologica, vol. 205, Art. no. 103060, 2020.

A. G. Sanfey, J. K. Rilling, J. A. Aronson, et al., "The neural basis of economic decision-making in the Ultimatum Game," Science, vol. 300, no. 5626, pp. 1755–1758, 2003.

M. Gummerum, L. F. Van Dillen, E. Van Dijk, et al., "Costly third-party interventions: The role of incidental anger and attention focus in punishment of the perpetrator and compensation of the victim," Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, vol. 65, pp. 94–104, 2016.

M. Gummerum, B. López-Pérez, E. Van Dijk, et al., "Ire and punishment: Incidental anger and costly punishment in children, adolescents, and adults," Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, vol. 218, Art. no. 105376, 2022.

M. Gummerum, B. López-Pérez, E. Van Dijk, et al., "When punishment is emotion-driven: Children's, adolescents', and adults' costly punishment of unfair allocations," Social Development, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 126–142, 2020.

Y. Lee and F. Warneken, "The influence of age and experience of (un)fairness on third-party punishment in children," Social Development, vol. 31, no. 4, pp. 1176–1193, 2022.

K. McAuliffe, S. Bangayan, T. Callaghan, et al., "Across six societies children engage in costly third-party punishment of unfair sharing," Communications Psychology, vol. 3, no. 1, Art. no. 43, 2025.

Y. Gao, L. Ao, H. Wang, et al., "Render help or stand by? The effect of group size on third-party punishment and its neural mechanisms," Behavioural Brain Research, vol. 476, Art. no. 115256, 2025.

F. Cui, C. Wang, Q. Cao, et al., "Social hierarchies in third-party punishment: A behavioral and ERP study," Biological Psychology, vol. 146, Art. no. 107722, 2019.

Y. Liu, L. Li, L. Zheng, et al., "Punish the perpetrator or compensate the victim? Gain vs. Loss context modulate third-party altruistic behaviors," Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 8, Art. no. 2066, 2017.

K. McAuliffe, P. R. Blake, N. Steinbeis, et al., "The developmental foundations of human fairness," Nature Human Behaviour, vol. 1, no. 2, Art. no. 0042, 2017.

I. Almås, A. W. Cappelen, E. Ø. Sørensen, et al., "Fairness and the development of inequality acceptance," Science, vol. 328, no. 5982, pp. 1176–1178, 2010.

T. Malti and M. Buchmann, "Socialization and individual antecedents of adolescents' and young adults' moral motivation," Journal of Youth and Adolescence, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 138–149, 2010.

Y. Zheng, Z. Yang, C. Jin, et al., "The influence of emotion on fairness-related decision making: A critical review of theories and evidence," Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 8, Art. no. 1592, 2017.

N. H. Bailen, L. M. Green, and R. J. Thompson, "Understanding emotion in adolescents: A review of emotional frequency, intensity, instability, and clarity," Emotion Review, vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 63–73, 2019.