Punishment is a negative sanction imposed on the violator of a system of rules and imposed by an authorized agent of that system of rules. The criminal courts can impose punishment on people for their violations of criminal law. The referee can impose punishment on those who violate the rules of a game of hockey. The principal can impose punishment on students who violate rules of the school. Retribution is now used exclusively to refer to punishment deserved because of an offence, and which fits the severity of the offence. Penology, from Latin poena for punishment, comprises penitentiary science. Operant conditioning is the process by which an individual's behavior is shaped by reinforcement or by Punishment. In psychology, implications for therapies and treatments using classical conditioning differ from operant conditioning.
The Evolution Of Altruistic Punishment - Although "altruistic punishment" in sociology of punishment may explain the high levels of cooperation in human societies, it creates an evolutionary puzzle. The evolution of altruistic punishment leads to the prediction that people will not incur costs to punish others to provide benefits to large groups of nonrelatives.
A peculiar sociology
of punishment
Tom Daems.
Abstract: In Peculiar Institution David Garland offers a sociological
explanation for Americas retention of the death penalty in an age of abolition.
But the book does much more than that. Peculiar Institution appeared exactly two
decades after the publication of Garlands second major study Punishment and
Modern Society. In that book he laid the foundations for a multidimensional
sociology of punishment. However, Garlands manifesto for a new pluralist
sociology of punishment fell to a large extent on deaf ears.
Altruistic punishment and the origin of cooperation - James H. Fowler, Edited by Henry C. Harpending. How did human cooperation evolve? Recent evidence shows that many people are willing to engage in altruistic punishment, voluntarily paying a cost to punish noncooperators. Although this behavior helps to explain how cooperation can persist, it creates an important puzzle. The model suggests that the cycle of strategies in voluntary public goods games does not persist in the presence of punishment strategies.
The Neural Basis of Altruistic Punishment - Dominique J. F. de Quervain, Urs Fischbacher, Valerie Treyer, Melanie Schellhammer, Ulrich Schnyder, Alfred Buck, Ernst Fehr. Many people voluntarily incur costs to punish violations of social norms. Evolutionary models and empirical evidence indicate that such altruistic punishment has been a decisive force in the evolution of human cooperation. Symbolic punishment did not reduce the defector's economic payoff, whereas effective punishment did reduce the payoff.
Costly Punishment Across
Human Societies
Joseph Henrich, Richard McElreath, Abigail Barr, Jean Ensminger, Clark Barrett,
Alexander Bolyanatz, Juan Camilo Cardenas, Michael Gurven, Edwins Gwako, Natalie
Henrich, Carolyn Lesorogol, Frank Marlowe, David Tracer, John Ziker.
Recent behavioral experiments aimed at understanding the evolutionary foundations of human
cooperation have suggested that a willingness to engage in costly punishment, even in
one-shot situations, may be part of human psychology and a key element in understanding
our sociality. All populations demonstrate some willingness to administer costly
punishment as unequal behavior increases, the magnitude of this punishment
varies substantially across populations, and costly punishment positively covaries with altruistic
behavior across populations.