{"title":"People Endorse Harsher Policies in Principle Than in Practice: Asymmetric Beliefs About Which Errors to Prevent Versus Fix","authors":"Eitan D. Rude, Franklin Shaddy","doi":"10.1177/09567976241228504","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Countless policies are crafted with the intention of punishing all who do wrong or rewarding only those who do right. However, this requires accommodating certain mistakes: some who do not deserve to be punished might be, and some who deserve to be rewarded might not be. Six preregistered experiments ( N = 3,484 U.S. adults) reveal that people are more willing to accept this trade-off in principle, before errors occur, than in practice, after errors occur. The result is an asymmetry such that for punishments, people believe it is more important to prevent false negatives (e.g., criminals escaping justice) than to fix them, and more important to fix false positives (e.g., wrongful convictions) than to prevent them. For rewards, people believe it is more important to prevent false positives (e.g., welfare fraud) than to fix them and more important to fix false negatives (e.g., improperly denied benefits) than to prevent them.","PeriodicalId":20745,"journal":{"name":"Psychological Science","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.8000,"publicationDate":"2024-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Psychological Science","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976241228504","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Countless policies are crafted with the intention of punishing all who do wrong or rewarding only those who do right. However, this requires accommodating certain mistakes: some who do not deserve to be punished might be, and some who deserve to be rewarded might not be. Six preregistered experiments ( N = 3,484 U.S. adults) reveal that people are more willing to accept this trade-off in principle, before errors occur, than in practice, after errors occur. The result is an asymmetry such that for punishments, people believe it is more important to prevent false negatives (e.g., criminals escaping justice) than to fix them, and more important to fix false positives (e.g., wrongful convictions) than to prevent them. For rewards, people believe it is more important to prevent false positives (e.g., welfare fraud) than to fix them and more important to fix false negatives (e.g., improperly denied benefits) than to prevent them.
期刊介绍:
Psychological Science, the flagship journal of The Association for Psychological Science (previously the American Psychological Society), is a leading publication in the field with a citation ranking/impact factor among the top ten worldwide. It publishes authoritative articles covering various domains of psychological science, including brain and behavior, clinical science, cognition, learning and memory, social psychology, and developmental psychology. In addition to full-length articles, the journal features summaries of new research developments and discussions on psychological issues in government and public affairs. "Psychological Science" is published twelve times annually.