Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Date of Degree

6-2026

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Program

Psychology

Advisor

Ana Gantman

Committee Members

Hannah Nam

Curtis Hardin

William Cunningham

Subject Categories

Social Psychology

Keywords

third-party punishment, punitiveness, authoritarianism, antidemocratic attitudes, ideology, norm enforcement

Abstract

While a rich body of research exists on predicting punishment preferences, this literature rarely differentiates between informal social sanctions versus drawing on state power.  Two preregistered experiments (N = 500; N = 1,104) used a novel forced-choice paradigm directly comparing endorsement of state versus interpersonal punishment to test whether authoritarianism predicts willingness to invoke state coercion specifically or reflects a more generalized punitiveness. Results consistently showed that while individuals low in trait authoritarianism preferred interpersonal over state punishment, those high in authoritarianism failed to differentiate between the two, and this effect was not explained by global punitiveness. Trait authoritarianism specifically predicted increased endorsement of state punishment, reduced sensitivity to punishment proportionality, and greater willingness to use state punishment for social norm violations and for ideological outgroup behaviors, an effect most pronounced for ideologically extreme behaviors. These findings suggest that authoritarianism is not simply associated with punitiveness, but with a specific miscalibration in judgments about when state punishment is appropriate.

Download

This work is embargoed and will be available for download on Friday, June 02, 2028

Share

COinS