To whom should punishment communicate? Children's and adults' perceptions of punishment's message

Why do people punish? Legal and political theories describing punishment as expressive argue that one of punishment's functions is to communicate information (e.g., which behaviors are unacceptable). While this work emphasizes communicating to transgressors, punishment may also show victims that others take their pain seriously. In two studies, we asked how laypeople perceive the communicative nature of punishment. Study 1 found that adults (n=156), but not 4- to 7-year-old children (n=84), evaluated communicating punishment to transgressors more positively than communicating it to victims. Study 2 (n=188 adults and n=87 children) revealed that adults also evaluated communicating the reason underlying punishment to transgressors more positively than communicating it to victims, whereas 5- to 7-year-old children showed a more balanced evaluation of the two targets. Indeed, children provided more favorable evaluations than did adults of scenarios that did not include transgressors as targets of punishment's message. Together, these findings suggest that adults, but not children, consistently prioritize informing transgressors over informing victims, potentially contributing to social responses to wrongdoing that place insufficient emphasis on victims’ informational and emotional needs.