People accept breaks in the causal chain between crime and punishment.

Abstract

Crime and punishment are usually connected. An agent intentionally causes harm, other people find out, and they punish the agent in response. We investigated whether people care about the integrity of this causal chain. Across seven experiments, participants (total N = 1,709) rated the acceptability of punishing agents for one crime when the agents had committed a different crime. Overall, participants generally approved of such wayward punishment. They endorsed it more strongly than punishing totally innocent agents, though they often approved of punishing agents for their correct crimes more strongly. Participants sometimes supported wayward punishment when wrongdoers were punished for a different kind of crime than the one committed, and they supported several different kinds of wayward punishments. Together the findings show that people often tolerate breaks in the causal chain between crime and punishment.