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Showing posts with label Self-Punishment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Self-Punishment. Show all posts

Friday, March 10, 2023

What does being hard on yourself communicate to others? The role of symbolic implications of self-punishment in attributions of remorse

Hechler, S., Wenzel, M., Woodyatt, L., & 
de Vel-Palumbo, M. 
(2022). Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 101. 
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2022.104305

Abstract

Self-punishment, the adverse treatment of the self as a response to own wrongdoing, seems dysfunctional on first sight. However, it may have interpersonal benefits, as it may affect how others perceive the offender. We argue that self-punishment communicates the offender's reaffirmation of the violated values as well as their own status degradation. Consequently, observers may attribute more remorse to the offender who self-punish, which in turn may increase their willingness to reconcile with the offender. Four studies conducted in the US and Germany (Ns = 285, 609, 648 and 603) tested these predicted processes experimentally by crossing self-punishment with an explicit message of either value restoration or status degradation from the offender. We employed a measurement-of-process as well as a moderation-of-process approach to investigate the processes underlying the attribution of remorse. The results consistently showed that, in the absence of an explicit message, self-punishment increased third parties’ attribution of remorse to the offender, but not (or less so) when offenders issued either explicit message. Both explicit messages increased remorse attributions, but this was not further enhanced by self-punishment. This pattern of redundancy implies that self-punishment and messages of value restoration and status degradation are interchangeable in their effects on remorse perceptions. These findings indicate that self-punishment communicates value reaffirmation and status degradation, and through these mechanisms increases remorse perceptions that are linked to third parties’ willingness to reconcile with the offender. The findings provide experimental evidence for a communicative function of self-punishment that may facilitate the restoration of jeopardized relationships.

Conclusion

At first glance, self-punishment seems a dysfunctional strategy to deal with one's own wrongdoings. The present studies indicate that self-punishment may in fact help to rebuild jeopardized relationships because self-punishment sends a message to others: they understand the offender's self-punishment as a reaffirmation of violated values and degradation of status, and consequently perceive the offender as remorseful and are willing to reconcile with them.



Monday, July 31, 2017

Truth or Punishment: Secrecy and Punishing the Self

Michael L. Slepian and Brock Bastian
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
First Published July 14, 2017, 1–17

Abstract

We live in a world that values justice; when a crime is committed, just punishment is expected to follow. Keeping one’s misdeed secret therefore appears to be a strategic way to avoid (just) consequences. Yet, people may engage in self-punishment to right their own wrongs to balance their personal sense of justice. Thus, those who seek an escape from justice by keeping secrets may in fact end up serving that same justice on themselves (through self-punishment). Six studies demonstrate that thinking about secret (vs. confessed) misdeeds leads to increased self-punishment (increased denial of pleasure and seeking of pain). These effects were mediated by the feeling one deserved to be punished, moderated by the significance of the secret, and were observed for both self-reported and behavioral measures of self-punishment.

Here is an excerpt:

Recent work suggests, however, that people who are reminded of their own misdeeds will sometimes seek out their own justice. That is, even subtle acts of self-punishment can restore a sense of personal justice, whereby a wrong feels to have been righted (Bastian et al., 2011; Inbar et al., 2013). Thus,
we predicted that even though keeping a misdeed secret could lead one to avoid being punished by others, it still could prompt a desire for punishment all the same, one inflicted by the self.

The article is here.

Note: There are significant implications in this article for psychotherapists.