Effects of Highly Palatable Diet on motivation for food and resistance to punishment in rats: Role of sex and age of exposure.

Exposure to highly palatable food is believed to induce behavioral and neurobiological changes that may produce addiction-like behavior and increase the risks of obesity and overweight. Studies in rodents have led to conflicting results suggesting that several factors such as sex and age of exposure contribute to the development of maladaptive behaviors towards food. In addition, it is not clear whether effects of exposure to highly palatable diets (HPD) persist after their discontinuation, which would indicate long-term risks to develop addiction-like behavior. In this study, we investigated the persistent effects of an intermittent 8-week exposure to HPD in male and female rats as a function of age of exposure (adult and adolescent). We found that intermittent exposure to HPD did not alter body weight, but it affected consumption of standard food during the time of exposure in all groups. In addition, in adults, HPD produced a decrease in the initial baseline responding in FR1 schedules, an effect that persisted for 4 weeks in males but not in female rats. However, we found that exposure to HPD did not affect resistance to punishment measured by progressive shock strength break points or motivation for food as measured by progressive-ratio break points regardless of sex or age of exposure. Altogether, these results do not provide support for the hypothesis that intermittent exposure to HPD produce persistent increases in the vulnerability to develop addiction-like behaviors towards palatable food.

Vicarious punishment of moral violations in naturalistic drama narratives predicts cortical synchronization.

Punishment of moral norm violators is instrumental for human cooperation. Yet, social and affective neuroscience research has primarily focused on second- and third-party norm enforcement, neglecting the neural architecture underlying observed (vicarious) punishment of moral wrongdoers. We used naturalistic television drama as a sampling space for observing outcomes of morally-relevant behaviors to assess how individuals cognitively process dynamically evolving moral actions and their consequences. Drawing on Affective Disposition Theory, we derived hypotheses linking character morality with viewers' neural processing of characters' rewards and punishments. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine neural responses of 28 female participants while free-viewing 15 short story summary video clips of episodes from a popular US television soap opera. Each summary included a complete narrative structure, fully crossing main character behaviors (moral/immoral) and the consequences (reward/punishment) characters faced for their actions. Narrative engagement was examined via intersubject correlation and representational similarity analysis. Highest cortical synchronization in 9 specifically selected regions previously implicated in processing moral information was observed when characters who act immorally are punished for their actions with participants' empathy as an important moderator. The results advance our understanding of the moral brain and the role of normative considerations and character outcomes in viewers' engagement with popular narratives.

Examining the Association between Punishment and Reward Sensitivity and Response Inhibition to Previously-Incentivized Cues across Development.

Processing and learning from affective cues to guide goal-directed behavior may be particularly important during adolescence; yet the factors that promote and/or disrupt the ability to integrate value in order to guide decision making across development remain unclear. The present study (N = 1046) assessed individual difference factors (self-reported punishment and reward sensitivity) related to whether previously-rewarded and previously-punished cues differentially impact goal-directed behavior (response inhibition) in a large developmental sample. Participants were between the ages of 8-21 years (Mage = 14.29, SD = 3.97, 50.38% female). Previously-rewarded cues improved response inhibition among participants age 14 and older. Further, punishment sensitivity predicted overall improved response inhibition among participants aged 10 to 18. The results highlight two main factors that are associated with improvements in the ability to integrate value to guide goal-directed behaviour - cues in the environment (e.g., reward-laden cues) and individual differences in punishment sensitivity. These findings have implications for both educational and social policies aimed at characterizing the ways in which youth integrate value to guide decision making.

Same allocation proposed by an individual or a group elicits distinct responses: Evidence from event-related potentials and neural oscillation.

People tend to perceive the same information differently depending on whether it is expressed in an individual or a group frame. It has also been found that the individual (vs. group) frame of expression tends to lead to more charitable giving and greater tolerance of wealth inequality. However, little is known about whether the same resource allocation in social interactions elicits distinct responses depending on proposer type. Using the second-party punishment task, this study examined whether the same allocation from different proposers (individual vs. group) leads to differences in recipient behavior and the neural mechanisms. Behavioral results showed that reaction times were longer in the unfair (vs. fair) condition, and this difference was more pronounced when the proposer was the individual (vs. group). Neural results showed that proposer type (individual vs. group) influenced early automatic processing (indicated by AN1, P2, and central alpha band), middle processing (indicated by MFN and right frontal theta band), and late elaborative processing (indicated by P3 and parietal alpha band) of fairness in resource allocation. These results revealed more attentional resources were captured by the group proposer in the early stage of fairness processing, and more cognitive resources were consumed by processing group-proposed unfair allocations in the late stage, possibly because group proposers are less identifiable than individual proposers. The findings provide behavioral and neural evidence for the effects of "individual/group" framing leading to cognitive differences. They also deliver insights into social governance issues, such as punishing individual and/or group violations.

The shorter a man is, the more he defends fairness: relative height disadvantage promoting third-party punishment-evidence from inter-brain synchronization.

Third-party punishment occurs in interpersonal interactions to sustain social norms, and is strongly influenced by the characteristics of the interacting individuals. During social interactions, height is the striking physical appearance features first observed, height disadvantage may critically influence men's behavior and mental health. Herein, we explored the influence of height disadvantage on third-party punishment through time-frequency analysis and electroencephalography hyperscanning. Two participants were randomly designated as the recipient and third party after height comparison and instructed to complete third-party punishment task. Compared with when the third party's height is higher than the recipient's height, when the third party's height is lower, the punishment rate and transfer amount were significantly higher. Only for highly unfair offers, the theta power was significantly greater when the third party's height was lower. The inter-brain synchronization between the recipient and the third party was significantly stronger when the third party's height was lower. Compared with the fair and medium unfair offers, the inter-brain synchronization was strongest for highly unfair offers. Our findings indicate that the height disadvantage-induced anger and reputation concern promote third-party punishment and inter-brain synchronization. This study enriches research perspective and expands the application of the theory of Napoleon complex.

Prevalence of Parental Violent Discipline Toward Children: Findings From A Portuguese Population.

Despite recognizing the detrimental impact of parental violence on children's mental and physical health throughout their lives, violence remains an all-too-real part of life for many children around the globe. However, data on the child-reported prevalence of experienced family violence are scarce and primarily based on parental reports. This study aimed to broaden the body of evidence and measure the lifetime prevalence of child-reported experience of violent disciplinary practices perpetrated by parents and to identify its associated sociodemographic and economic factors. We conducted a cross-sectional study using data from 5,281 Generation XXI participants recruited from 2005 to 2006 in Porto, Portugal. Parental disciplinary practices were reported by 7-year-old children using the Parent-Child Conflict Tactics Scale. Pearson's Chi-squared test was used to compare differences in child-reported frequencies of violent disciplinary practices by sociodemographic variables. We observed statistically significant differences in rates of violent disciplinary practices according to the child's and parent's gender. Specifically, fathers exhibited a higher likelihood than mothers to engage in psychological aggression and corporal punishment, while mothers were more prone to engage in severe and very severe physical assault. When fathers were the perpetrators, boys were more inclined than girls to report all forms of violent disciplinary measures, and when mothers were the perpetrators, boys were particularly susceptible to severe and very severe physical assault compared to girls. In our study, children reported being frequently subjected to violent parental disciplinary practices, independently of family socioeconomic background. Children were more likely to experience psychological aggression and corporal punishment if they were born into high-income families, while severe and very severe physical assaults were more common among children whose parents had lower educational levels. National public awareness of the negative effects of violent disciplinary practices is urgently needed, promoting child-friendly and nonviolent approaches to discipline.

Negative self-perceptions and severity of NSSI: Testing the benefits and barriers model.

Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is theorized to be caused by negative associations with the self, including low self-esteem, but the mechanisms explaining why low self-esteem is related to more severe NSSI are unclear. The current study aimed to address this limitation by evaluating a mediation model, proposing that low self-esteem would relate to more severe NSSI through increasing self-punishment motivations. Data came from 468 undergraduate students with a history of NSSI who completed an online survey measuring NSSI characteristics and functions, self-esteem, and self-punishment motivations for NSSI. Mediation was tested using a structural equation model using bootstrapped 95% percentile-corrected confidence intervals in which NSSI severity was modeled as a latent variable composed of NSSI frequency, recency, and versatility of methods. The total model was significant and the indirect effect of self-esteem on NSSI severity through self-punishment motives was significant. Self-esteem also retained significant direct effects on NSSI severity, indicating partial mediation. These results provide support for the benefits and barriers model of NSSI, suggesting that negative self-views increase risk for more severe NSSI through self-punishment motivations. Clinical interventions that emphasize self-compassion and focus on modifying self-punishment motivations may help reduce NSSI behavior.

Depressive Symptoms in Later Life in China: Situating "Long Arm" of Child Physical Maltreatment Within a Family Context.

Objective: This article intends to reveal the long-term effects of physical maltreatment in childhood on depressive symptoms in later life in China. Methods: Data were drawn from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS). 8676 respondents aged 45 and older were included in the study. In this study, we use ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models to estimate the long-term impact on children of physical punishment from their parents. Results: We found that individuals who recalled being hit by their mother in early life reported more depressive symptoms than those who recalled being punished by their father. Difficult family contexts (e.g., comparative poverty, family violence, and parent's poor mental health) had a weak association with higher risk of reporting physical maltreatment and more depressive symptoms among respondents in later life. Conclusion: This article extended the exploration of the long-term impact of child physical maltreatment beyond adolescence and into until later adult life. Effective policies to protect children from maltreatment in the form of physical punishment require further attention to the challenges posed by tradition and culture.

The importance of social rejection as reputational sanction in fostering peace.

I challenge the idea by Glowacki that "strong sanctions" such as fines, physical punishment, or execution are more effective in promoting peace than "weak punishments" like social rejection. Reviewing evidence that social rejection can have significant social and psychological costs for norm violators, I propose that social rejection can serve as a powerful reputational sanction in fostering peace in society.

Cross-societal variation in norm enforcement systems.

Across human societies, people are sometimes willing to punish norm violators. Such punishment can take the form of revenge from victims, seemingly altruistic intervention from third parties, or legitimized sanctioning from institutional representatives. Although prior work has documented cross-cultural regularities in norm enforcement, substantial variation exists in the prevalence and forms of punishment across societies. Such cross-societal variation may arise from universal psychological mechanisms responding to different socio-ecological conditions, or from cultural evolutionary processes, resulting in different norm enforcement systems. To date, empirical evidence from comparative studies across diverse societies has remained disconnected, owing to a lack of interdisciplinary integration and a prevalent tendency of empirical studies to focus on different underpinnings of variation in norm enforcement. To provide a more complete view of the shared and unique aspects of punishment across societies, we review prior research in anthropology, economics and psychology, and take a first step towards integrating the plethora of socio-ecological and cultural factors proposed to explain cross-societal variation in norm enforcement. We conclude by discussing how future cross-societal research can use diverse methodologies to illuminate key questions on the domain-specificity of punishment, the diversity of tactics supporting social norms, and their role in processes of norm change. This article is part of the theme issue 'Social norm change: drivers and consequences'.

Reconfiguration of the costly punishment network architecture in punishment decision-making.

Human costly punishment is rooted in multiple regions across large-scale functional systems, a collection of which constitutes the costly punishment network (CPN). Our previous study found that the CPN is intrinsically organized in an optimized and reliable manner to support individual costly punishment propensity. However, it remains unknown how the CPN is reconfigured in response to external cognitive demands in punishment decision-making. Here, we combined resting-state and task-functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine the task-related reconfigurations of intrinsic organizations of the CPN when participants made decisions of costly punishment in the Ultimatum Game. Although a strong consistency was observed in the overall pattern and each nodal profile between the intrinsic (task-free) and extrinsic (task-evoked) functional connectivity of the CPN, condition-general and condition-specific reconfigurations were also evident. Specifically, both unfair and fair conditions induced increases in functional connectivity between a few specific pairs of regions, and the unfair condition additionally induced increases in network efficiency of the CPN. Intriguingly, the specific changes in global efficiency of the CPN in the unfair condition were associated with individual differences in costly punishment after adjusting for the corresponding results in the fair condition, which were further identified for females but not for males. These findings were largely reproducible on independent samples. Collectively, our findings provide novel insights into how the CPN adaptively reconfigures its network architecture to support costly punishment.

Impaired Punishment Learning in Conduct Disorder.

OBJECTIVE: Conduct disorder (CD) has been associated with deficits in the use of punishment to guide reinforcement learning (RL) and decision making. This may explain the poorly planned and often impulsive antisocial and aggressive behavior in affected youths. Here, we used a computational modeling approach to examine differences in RL abilities between CD youths and typically developing controls (TDCs). Specifically, we tested 2 competing hypotheses that RL deficits in CD reflect either reward dominance (also known as reward hypersensitivity) or punishment insensitivity (also known as punishment hyposensitivity). METHOD: The study included 92 CD youths and 130 TDCs (aged 9-18 years, 48% girls) who completed a probabilistic RL task with reward, punishment, and neutral contingencies. Using computational modeling, we investigated the extent to which the 2 groups differed in their learning abilities to obtain reward and/or to avoid punishment. RESULTS: RL model comparisons showed that a model with separate learning rates per contingency explained behavioral performance best. Importantly, CD youths showed lower learning rates than TDCs specifically for punishment, whereas learning rates for reward and neutral contingencies did not differ. Moreover, callous-unemotional (CU) traits did not correlate with learning rates in CD. CONCLUSION: CD youths have a highly selective impairment in probabilistic punishment learning, regardless of their CU traits, whereas reward learning appears to be intact. In summary, our data suggest punishment insensitivity rather than reward dominance in CD. Clinically, the use of punishment-based intervention techniques to achieve effective discipline in patients with CD may be a less helpful strategy than reward-based techniques.

Depression is associated with reduced outcome sensitivity in a dual valence, magnitude learning task.

BACKGROUND: Learning from rewarded and punished choices is perturbed in depressed patients, suggesting that abnormal reinforcement learning may be a cognitive mechanism of the illness. However, previous studies have disagreed about whether this behavior is produced by alterations in the rate of learning or sensitivity to experienced outcomes. This previous work has generally assessed learning in response to binary outcomes of one valence, rather than to both rewarding and punishing continuous outcomes. METHODS: A novel drifting reward and punishment magnitude reinforcement-learning task was administered to patients with current (n = 40) and remitted depression (n = 39), and healthy volunteers (n = 40) to capture potential differences in learning behavior. Standard questionnaires were administered to measure self-reported depressive symptom severity, trait and state anxiety and level of anhedonic symptoms. RESULTS: Our findings demonstrate that patients with current depression adjust their learning behaviors to a lesser degree in response to trial-by-trial variations in reward and loss magnitudes than the other groups. Computational modeling revealed that this behavioral signature of current depressive state is better accounted for by reduced reward and punishment sensitivity (all p < 0.031), rather than a change in learning rate (p = 0.708). However, between-group differences were not related to self-reported symptom severity or comorbid anxiety disorders in the current depression group. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that current depression is associated with reduced outcome sensitivity rather than altered learning rate. Previous findings reported in this domain mainly from binary learning tasks seem to generalize to learning from continuous outcomes.

The science of justice: The neuropsychology of social punishment.

The social punishment (SP) of norm violations has received much attention across multiple disciplines. However, current models of SP fail to consider the role of motivational processes, and none can explain the observed behavioral and neuropsychological differences between the two recognized forms of SP: second-party punishment (2PP) and third-party punishment (3PP). After reviewing the literature giving rise to the current models of SP, we propose a unified model of SP which integrates general psychological descriptions of decision-making as a confluence of affect, cognition, and motivation, with evidence that SP is driven by two main factors: the amount of harm (assessed primarily in the salience network) and the norm violator's intention (assessed primarily in the default-mode and central-executive networks). We posit that motivational differences between 2PP and 3PP, articulated in mesocorticolimbic pathways, impact final SP by differentially impacting the assessments of harm and intention done in these domain-general large-scale networks. This new model will lead to a better understanding of SP, which might even improve forensic, procedural, and substantive legal practices.

Learning bias predicts fear acquisition under stress but not cognitive flexibility.

Individuals differ in their ability to learn from reinforcement and in avoiding punishment, which can be measured by the Probabilistic Selection Task (PST). Recently, some studies have demonstrated that this learning bias is regulated by the dopaminergic system, and that stress can differentially affect the use of positive (i.e., reinforcement) and negative (i.e., avoiding punishment) feedback. The current two studies examined whether performance on the PST can predict measures of goal-directed behaviour as assessed by a cognitive flexibility task (Wisconsin Card Sorting Test) and the acquisition of fear responses, when individuals are exposed to a stressor (Socially Evaluated Cold Pressor Test). A total of 26 and 59 healthy participants completed Experiments I and II, respectively. In those who were best at learning from reinforcement, stress increased the processing (i.e., higher skin conductance responses) of non-threatening stimuli during fear acquisition compared to the non-stressful condition, which was not recapitulated in those who were best at avoiding punishment. Additionally, PST performance did not interact with stress to modulate cognitive flexibility, although stress negatively impaired this domain, consistent with previous findings. Furthermore, independent of stress, both positive and negative learning biases were correlated with cognitive flexibility errors. Our results demonstrate that the PST has predictive value for better understanding the determinants of reinforcement and avoidance learning.

Neurocomputational Substrates Underlying the Effect of Identifiability on Third-Party Punishment.

The identifiable target effect refers to the preference for helping identified victims and punishing identifiable perpetrators compared with equivalent but unidentifiable counterparts. The identifiable target effect is often attributed to the heightened moral emotions evoked by identified targets. However, the specific neurocognitive processes that mediate and/or modulate this effect remain largely unknown. Here, we combined a third-party punishment game with brain imaging and computational modeling to unravel the neurocomputational underpinnings of the identifiable transgressor effect. Human participants (males and females) acted as bystanders and punished identified or anonymous wrongdoers. Participants were more punitive toward identified wrongdoers than anonymous wrongdoers because they took a vicarious perspective of victims and adopted lower reference points of inequity (i.e., more stringent norms) in the identified context than in the unidentified context. Accordingly, there were larger activity of the ventral anterior insula, more distinct multivariate neural patterns in the dorsal anterior insula and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, and lower strength between ventral anterior insula and dorsolateral PFC and between dorsal anterior insula and ventral striatum connectivity in response to identified transgressors than anonymous transgressors. These findings implicate the interplay of expectancy violations, emotions, and self-interest in the identifiability effect. Last, individual differences in the identifiability effect were associated with empathic concern/social dominance orientation, activity in the precuneus/cuneus and temporo-parietal junction, and intrinsic functional connectivity of the dorsolateral PFC. Together, our work is the first to uncover the neurocomputational processes mediating identifiable transgressor effect and to characterize psychophysiological profiles modulating the effect.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The identifiable target effect, more help to identified victims or stronger punishment to identifiable perpetrators, is common in daily life. We examined the neurocomputational mechanisms mediating/modulating the identifiability effect on third-party punishment by bridging literature from economics and cognitive neuroscience. Our findings reveal that identifiable transgressor effect is mediated by lower reference points of inequity (i.e., more stringent norms), which might be associated with a stronger involvement of the emotion processes and a weaker engagement of the analytic/deliberate processes. Furthermore, personality traits, altered brain activity, and intrinsic functional connectivity contribute to the individual variance in the identifiability effect. Overall, our study advances the understanding of the identifiability effect by shedding light on its component processes and modulating factors.

Spanking and executive functioning in US children: A longitudinal analysis on a matched sample.

BACKGROUND: Spanking has been linked to multiple maladaptive child outcomes. However, previous research linking spanking with children's executive function skills (EFs; inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, and working memory) is limited by research designs that do not adequately address selection bias concerns, wherein the participant characteristics potentially differ between those who are spanked versus not spanked. OBJECTIVE: Using a representative sample of US children aged 5 to 6, this study strengthened the evidence for causal estimates on the link between spanking and subsequent EFs with a matched-group design. Low-frequency spanking and potential moderators (child gender, parent race/ethnicity, parental warmth) were tested to determine if they moderated the link between spanking and EFs. PARTICIPANTS: Data were drawn from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-11 (Ns = 12,750-12,830). To mitigate selection bias, entropy-balanced matching was utilized to match spanked versus not-spanked groups, and lagged dependent variable regression analyses were conducted on the matched sample to predict EFs by spanking group status. RESULTS: After matching, spanking at age 5 was associated with lower inhibitory control and lower cognitive flexibility at age 6, but was not significantly predictive of later working memory. The association with inhibitory control was observed even for low frequency spanking. However, no evidence of moderation by child gender, parent race/ethnicity, and parental warmth was identified. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides evidence that spanking is associated with lower executive functioning in children, although the associations varied by different EF domains.

Vicarious severe school discipline predicts racial disparities among non-disciplined Black and White American adolescents.

Racial disparities in school discipline may have collateral consequences on the larger non-suspended student population. The present study leveraged two longitudinal datasets with 1201 non-suspended adolescents (48% Black, 52% White; 55% females, 45% males; Mage : 12-13) enrolled in 84 classrooms in an urban mid-Atlantic city of the United States during the 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 academic years. Classmates' minor infraction suspensions predicted greater next year's defiant infractions among non-suspended Black adolescents, and this longitudinal relation was worse for Black youth enrolled in predominantly Black classrooms. For White youth, classmates' minor infraction suspensions predicted greater defiant infractions specifically when they were enrolled in predominantly non-White classrooms. Racial inequities in school discipline may have repercussions that disadvantage all adolescents regardless of race.

Physical Violence and Scapegoating Within the Family: An Exploration of Biblical Texts and Contemporary Psychology.

To understand physical violence in the family, it is important to define the role of the victim. The term "scapegoat" is a universal anthropological concept, often used in sociological theories, where a certain group of people and/or minorities are often victimized or blamed (e.g., social ills). We may note that the phenomenon of scapegoating is most clearly expressed in the Bible. Therefore, we will use relevant biblical texts that refer to parental use of corporal punishment in which a child is scapegoated and/or victimized by parental violence. In this sense, the Bible is the most profound explanation and manifestation of the cultural, social, and especially religious development of humanity. At the same time, the concept of scapegoating is also demonstrated in psychology and therapy, where it also serves as a basis for understanding, for example, physical violence in the family, and where it is also crucial to define the role of the victim. In this article, therefore, we will explain the biblical background of this concept and highlight two basic dynamics of violence against children in the family: when the child is the "scapegoat" for unresolved tensions in the family and when the child becomes the "sacrifice" or victim of the dysregulated emotional response of his or her parents.

A cognitive pathway to punishment insensitivity.

Individuals differ in their sensitivity to the adverse consequences of their actions, leading some to persist in maladaptive behaviors. Two pathways have been identified for this insensitivity: a motivational pathway based on excessive reward valuation and a behavioral pathway based on autonomous stimulus-response mechanisms. Here, we identify a third, cognitive pathway based on differences in punishment knowledge and use of that knowledge to suppress behavior. We show that distinct phenotypes of punishment sensitivity emerge from differences in what people learn about their actions. Exposed to identical punishment contingencies, some people (sensitive phenotype) form correct causal beliefs that they use to guide their behavior, successfully obtaining rewards and avoiding punishment, whereas others form incorrect but internally coherent causal beliefs that lead them to earn punishment they do not like. Incorrect causal beliefs were not inherently problematic because we show that many individuals benefit from information about why they are being punished, revaluing their actions and changing their behavior to avoid further punishment (unaware phenotype). However, one condition where incorrect causal beliefs were problematic was when punishment is infrequent. Under this condition, more individuals show punishment insensitivity and detrimental patterns of behavior that resist experience and information-driven updating, even when punishment is severe (compulsive phenotype). For these individuals, rare punishment acted as a "trap," inoculating maladaptive behavioral preferences against cognitive and behavioral updating.