Publications
Publications
- 2023
- HBS Working Paper Series
How Reputation Does (and Does Not) Drive People to Punish Without Looking
By: Jillian J. Jordan and Nour S. Kteily
Abstract
Punishing wrongdoers can confer reputational benefits, and people sometimes punish without
careful consideration. But are these two observations related? Do people “punish without looking”
for reputational gain? And if so, is this because unquestioning punishment looks particularly
virtuous? To investigate, we assigned “Actors” to decide whether to sign punitive petitions about
politicized issues (“punishment”), after first deciding whether to read articles opposing these
petitions (“looking”). To manipulate reputation, we paired Actors with co-partisan “Evaluators”,
varying whether Evaluators observed (i) nothing about Actors’ behavior, (ii) (only) whether Actors
punished, or (iii) whether Actors punished and whether they looked. Across four studies of
Americans (total n = 10,343), we found that Evaluators rated Actors more positively, and
financially rewarded them, if they chose to (vs. not to) punish. Correspondingly, making
punishment observable to Evaluators (i.e., moving from our first to second condition) drove Actors
to punish more overall. Furthermore, because some of these individuals did not look, making
punishment observable increased rates of punishment without looking. Thus, reputation can
encourage unquestioning punishment. But do punishers who eschew opposing perspectives look
particularly virtuous? No: Evaluators preferred Actors who punished with (vs. without) looking.
Correspondingly, making looking observable (i.e., moving from our second to third condition)
drove Actors to look more overall—and to punish without looking at comparable or diminished
rates. We thus find that reputation fuels unthinking punishment, but simply as a byproduct of
encouraging punishment in general. Indeed, rather than fueling reflexive decisions, spotlighting
punishers’ decision-making processes may actually encourage reflection.
Keywords
Opposing Perspectives; Outrage Culture; Signaling; Ideology; Moralistic Punishment; Perspective; Behavior; Reputation; Decision Making
Citation
Jordan, Jillian J., and Nour S. Kteily. "How Reputation Does (and Does Not) Drive People to Punish Without Looking." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 22-073, June 2022. (Revised February 2023.)