不同干预规则下10~12岁儿童的第三方惩罚与补偿行为：“热情—能力”感知的作用

hird-party altruistic behaviors are the act of a bystander (i.e., a third party), whose interests are not directly affected, sacrificing his or her own interests in order to punish the violator or to compensate the victim of the fairness rule. Children are capable of third-party altruistic behaviors by the age of six. Previous studies have focused on single choice interventions that only punish the violator or compensate the victim. It remains unclear which altruistic approach children prefer when punishment and compensation are both capable, which means they can punish the violator as well as compensate the victim. The warmth-competence perception is a widely applied model in studies of interpersonal cognition, but the process by which children judge the traits of others from their behaviors and make their own decisions remains unclear as well. To investigate the effects of different intervention rules on childrens choice of approach and behavioral performance in defending fairness among 10-12 years old, our study examined their third-party punishment and third-party compensation behaviors in three conditions of high inequity, moderate inequity, and fairness under the intervention rules of punishment-compensation single choice (N1 = 243) and punishment-compensation multiple choice (N2 = 236), respectively. A third-party punishment or compensation task adapted from the dictator game was used, with the proposer giving 1/3/5 coins to the recipient in turn from a pool of 10 coins. Children acting as third parties were required to report their perceived warmth and competence of the proposer and how many coins they were willing to intervene with out of their 5 coins. Children in the punishment-compensation single choice group could only choose to punish the proposer, compensate the recipient, or not intervene, while children in the punishment-compensation multiple choice group could punish the proposer as well as compensate the recipient. The findings of this study were as follows. (1) Third-party altruistic behaviors differed among 10-12-year-old children under different intervention rules: under the punishment-compensation single choice intervention rule, children tended to choose third-party compensation, while under the punishment-compensation multiple choice intervention rule, they more often chose to engage in both third-party punishment and compensation. Additionally, under the punishment-compensation multiple choice rule, children took out more coins to punish the proposer. (2) Childrens perceptions of warmth-competence differed significantly between the two intervention rules. The perceptions of warmth-competence mediated the relationship between offer conditions and childrens third-party altruistic amount in the punishment-compensation multiple choice intervention rule, whereas no mediating role was found in the punishment-compensation single choice intervention rule. In conclusion, intervention rules had an impact on childrens third-party altruistic behaviors, the perceptions of the proposers warmth-competence also played a role in this. By examining both third-party punishment and compensation behaviors and exploring the role of warmth-competence perceptions, our study theoretically enriches the understanding of childrens third-party altruistic behaviors and the psychological mechanisms behind them. From a practical perspective, our study can guide childrens third-party altruistic behaviors and help them grow up in a healthy manner.