When witnessing norm violations (e.g., stealing), initially uninvolved individuals often invest their own resources to restore justice, either by punishing the offender or compensating the victim. While explicit instructions to focus on the offender or victim have been shown to influence attention and the resulting actions (i.e., the decision to punish or compensate), the current study investigated more implicit, subtle means of shaping third-party decision-making. In three preregistered experiments (N = 324), participants played an incentivized third-party justice game. We examined how different social cues (face, gaze, personal information) affect preferences for (i) the type of intervention (punish, compensate, do nothing) and (ii) its intensity.
Controlling for participants’ baseline behavior as well as justice sensitivity and empathic concern, Experiment 1 showed that displaying a portrait photo of the offender increased punishment, while showing a photo of the victim increased compensation; gaze direction of the person in the photo had no effect. In Experiment 2, when both photos were presented simultaneously, participants invested more chips when the victim displayed direct (vs. averted) gaze, especially for compensation. Experiment 3 revealed that providing written information (i.e., name and a unique personal fact) about either the offender or victim, rather than a photo, did not affect third-party decisions. Across experiments, baseline preferences and unfairness of the witnessed transgression consistently influenced intervention tendencies.
We conclude that social cues, particularly those capturing bottom-up social attention (e.g., faces), can shape third-party decisions. Findings are also discussed in the context of the identifiable victim (and offender) effect.