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The almost exclusive focus on punishment and inattention to compensatory alternatives in studies involving experimental games may yield patterns that do not accurately reflect how and when people respond to injustice, particularly if punishment and compensation are not psychologically equivalent approaches to justice restoration. In the current study, we examined participants' preference for punitive and compensatory actions, while also exploring emotional determinants and boundary conditions. Our results indicated that participants actually compensated victims more than they punished offenders and that the majority of participants assigned both. Furthermore, although both interventions were associated with emotional experiences of moral outrage toward the offender, self-focused emotions reflecting feelings of threat only predicted compensation and only when victims were aware that they had been victimized. These findings augment our understanding of third-party interventions, emphasizing the importance of considering response alternatives when studying the psychology of justice.

Altruistic punishment refers to the phenomenon that humans invest their own resources to redress norm violations without self-interest involved. We address the question of who will intervene in situations that allow for altruistic punishment. We suggest that individual differences in a genuine concern for justice, as reflected by the personality trait of justice sensitivity, determine the experience of moral emotions in the face of injustice, which in turn trigger altruistic punishment. Results of two studies support the proposed mediation effect for other-regarding justice sensitivity, even though an opportunity for compensation of the victim (Study 2) was offered as an alternative to punishment (Study 1). Furthermore, the mediation effect was observed when moral outrage was measured by means of quantified open statements (Study 1) and self-report scales using discrete emotions (Study 2). The findings help to explain the psychological mechanisms underlying engagement in costly social sanctioning of norm violations.

Bullying is not a specific phenomenon of the school environment. Different forms of verbal victimisation and social manipulation are also common behaviors in internet chatrooms. The present study compares traditional bullying with chatroom bullying. A total of 1,700 pupils of different secondary schools (aged 10 to 19) participated and were asked about their own aggressive behavior in school and in internet chatrooms. Variables like self-confidence, child-parent-relationship, school situation, delinquency, dissocial behavior on the internet, and attitudes to aggression were also examined. The results show that bullies in school are also significantly more often bullies in chatrooms than others. Furthermore, bullying behavior in school and in chatrooms is determined by similar predictors.

Die gemeinsame Studie des Instituts der deutschen Wirtschaft Köln und des Instituts für Wirtschafts- und Sozialpsychologie an der Universität zu Köln untersucht die negativen Auswirkungen staatlicher Eingriffe auf die Motivation und Leistungsfähigkeit der Empfänger staatlicher Transferzahlungen. Als theoretische Grundlage wird dazu ein integratives Menschenbild entwickelt. Die daran anschließende Analyse der sozialen Schichtung und sozialen Mobilität in Deutschland mündet in eine Betrachtung konkreter Beispiele von Sozialstaatsfallen – mit dem zentralen Ergebnis, dass die staatlichen Eingriffe die Arbeitsmotivation und -fähigkeit der Betroffenen vielfach unterminieren. Dies führt zu schlechteren Perspektiven, langfristig ein bestimmtes soziales Milieu verlassen zu können, und damit zu geringeren Aufstiegschancen. Das Gegenmittel ist eine Konzentration wirtschafts- und bildungspolitischer Maßnahmen auf die Stärkung der Erwerbsarbeit und des Bildungssystems – mit dem Ziel, die Durchlässigkeit der Schichten zu steigern und die Chancengerechtigkeit zu verbessern. Darüber hinaus sind einzelne Korrekturen an staatlichen Transferinstrumenten erforderlich, um unmittelbar die Arbeitsanreize zu erhöhen und um Ineffizienzen im Sozialsystem zu verringern. This joint study by the Cologne Institute for Economic Research and the Institute for Economic and Social Psychology at the University of Cologne investigates the negative effects of state intervention on the motivation and productivity of public welfare recipients. At first an integrative model of individual behavior was developed as a theoretical basis. The subsequent analysis of social stratification and social mobility in Germany is followed by an examination of examples of welfare traps. The key finding is that state intervention often undermines the willingness and ability to work of those affected. This lowers their prospects of eventually leaving a certain social environment and thus of achieving upward mobility. The suggested remedy is to concentrate economic and educational policy measures on strengthening employability and improving the education system (eduployment). The aim is to increase the permeability of social strata and provide better opportunities for everybody. In addition, certain corrections to the way welfare is distributed are necessary in order to boost the incentives to work and to reduce inefficiencies in the welfare system.

Men are more often victims of events like car accidents or (violent) crimes than women with the sole exception of sexual assault. Based on the theory of sexual selection, it has been argued that these sex differences in both perpetration and victimization rates can be attributed to sex differences in risk taking and short-term orientation. Men are expected to be more risk prone than women because throughout evolutionary history, men had to engage in a higher level of intrasexual competition. However, despite the theoretical plausibility and empirical evidence at the behavioral level, there is little direct evidence that risk attitudes and short-term orientation as a sexually dimorphic personality trait mediate rates of victimization. Measures of risk attitude and short-term orientation administered to a German student sample (N = 275) showed that: (1) the likelihood of being victimized by different kinds of negative events did correlate with both the risk attitudes and short-term orientation of a (potential) victim, (2) men had a more positive attitude, towards risks and were more short-term oriented than women, and (3) sex differences in victimization rates were mediated by sex differences in risk attitudes, implying a close link between risk attitude and short-term orientation. We also show that women's risk of being raped is related to their individual risk attitude scores. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.