title: On sanction-goal justifications: How and why deterrence justifications undermine rule compliance.
abstract: Authorities frequently justify their sanctions as attempts to deter people from rule breaking. Although providing a sanction justification seems appealing and harmless, we propose that a deterrence justification decreases the extent to which sanctions are effective in promoting rule compliance. We develop a theoretical model that specifies how and why this occurs. Consistent with our model, 5 experiments demonstrated that-compared with sanctions provided without a justification or sanctions provided with a just-deserts justification-sanction effectiveness decreased when sanctions were justified as attempts to deter people from rule breaking. This effect was mediated by people feeling distrusted by the authority. We further demonstrated that (a) the degree to which deterrence fostered distrust was attenuated when the sanction was targeted at others (instead of the participant) and (b) the degree to which distrust undermined rule compliance was attenuated when the authority was perceived as legitimate. We discuss the practical implications for authorities tasked with promoting rule compliance, and the theoretical implications for the literature on sanctions, distrust, and rule compliance. (PsycINFO Database Record
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Southern California.
authors.forename: Marlon
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mooijman
authors.affiliation: Department of Social and Organizational Psychology, Leiden University.
authors.forename: Wilco W
authors.initials: WW
authors.lastname: van Dijk
authors.affiliation: Department of Social and Organizational Psychology, Leiden University.
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: van Dijk
authors.affiliation: Department of Social, Health, & Organizational Psychology, Utrecht University.
authors.forename: Naomi
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ellemers
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D008192:Deception; D005260:Female; D006040:Goals; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009042:Motivation; D011678:Punishment / Q000523:psychology*; D012919:Social Behavior; D035502:Trust; D055815:Young Adult