Adolescents' Third-Party Punishment for Unfairness: Developmental Differences in Cognitive and Emotional Drivers

Third-party punishment (TPP) serves as a fundamental prosocial behavior essential for upholding societal fairness norms. This study recruited 104 participants, systematically divided into early (11-13 years), middle (15-17 years), and late (18-21 years) adolescent cohorts, to investigate the developmental characteristics of TPP. Furthermore, it explored the divergent associations of perceived unfairness and anger with TPP across these distinct adolescent subgroups. The results demonstrated that TPP intensity was significantly influenced solely by the level of unfairness, with no significant differences observed across the various adolescent developmental stages. Unfairness ratings were positively correlated with age and escalated alongside the unfairness level. Similarly, anger ratings were positively correlated with age, increased with the severity of unfairness, and exhibited significant developmental variations: early adolescents reported substantially lower anger ratings than their middle and late counterparts under unfair scenarios, whereas no significant difference emerged between middle and late adolescents. Correlation analyses revealed distinct subgroup patterns: the TPP of early adolescents was exclusively positively correlated with anger; late adolescents' TPP demonstrated a strong positive correlation with both perceived unfairness and anger; conversely, middle adolescents exhibited no significant correlations between TPP and either factor. Ultimately, this study indicates that TPP for unfairness remains developmentally stable throughout adolescence, and this consistent external punitive behavior is fundamentally underpinned by maturing internal cognitive-emotional mechanisms. These findings significantly deepen our understanding of adolescent TPP developmental mechanisms and provide robust empirical evidence for cultivating prosocial, norm-based behaviors.