TY - JOUR
T1 - Capital and punishment
T2 - Resource scarcity increases endorsement of the death penalty
AU - Williams, Keelah E.G.
AU - Votruba, Ashley M.
AU - Neuberg, Steven
AU - Saks, Michael
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was financially supported by research funds provided to Steven L. Neuberg by the Arizona State University Foundation for a New American University.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Elsevier Inc.
PY - 2019/1
Y1 - 2019/1
N2 - Faced with punishing severe offenders, why do some prefer imprisonment whereas others impose death? Previous research exploring death penalty attitudes has primarily focused on individual and cultural factors. Adopting a functional perspective, we propose that environmental features may also shape our punishment strategies. Individuals are attuned to the availability of resources within their environments. Due to heightened concerns with the costliness of repeated offending, we hypothesize that individuals tend towards elimination-focused punishments during times of perceived scarcity. Using global and United States data sets (studies 1 and 2), we find that indicators of resource scarcity predict the presence of capital punishment. In two experiments (studies 3 and 4), we find that activating concerns about scarcity causes people to increase their endorsement for capital punishment, and this effect is statistically mediated by a reduced willingness to risk repeated offenses. Perceived resource scarcity shapes our punishment preferences, with important policy implications.
AB - Faced with punishing severe offenders, why do some prefer imprisonment whereas others impose death? Previous research exploring death penalty attitudes has primarily focused on individual and cultural factors. Adopting a functional perspective, we propose that environmental features may also shape our punishment strategies. Individuals are attuned to the availability of resources within their environments. Due to heightened concerns with the costliness of repeated offending, we hypothesize that individuals tend towards elimination-focused punishments during times of perceived scarcity. Using global and United States data sets (studies 1 and 2), we find that indicators of resource scarcity predict the presence of capital punishment. In two experiments (studies 3 and 4), we find that activating concerns about scarcity causes people to increase their endorsement for capital punishment, and this effect is statistically mediated by a reduced willingness to risk repeated offenses. Perceived resource scarcity shapes our punishment preferences, with important policy implications.
KW - Death penalty
KW - Punishment
KW - Resource availability
KW - Scarcity
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U2 - 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2018.08.002
DO - 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2018.08.002
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85051663332
SN - 1090-5138
VL - 40
SP - 65
EP - 73
JO - Evolution and Human Behavior
JF - Evolution and Human Behavior
IS - 1
ER -