You Are Not Alone – Third-Party Punishment by Individuals and Groups Empowers Victims

Third-party punishment communicates with offenders to resocialize them. However, little is known about what it communicates to victims. Considering group contexts, the current research focuses on the effects on victims of either one individual or the entire group punishing offenders. Five preregistered experiments (N = 1,231; student and online adult samples from Germany and the United Kingdom) demonstrate that various forms of third-party punishment empower victims (Studies 1, 3, 4, and 5) and that this effect is amplified when the entire group supports the punishment (Studies 1–4). Sequential mediation analyses and experimental designs show that punishment restores value consensus, which in turn revalidates victims’ group membership status, thereby empowering victims. Regardless of explicit messages, stand-alone punishment empowers victims (Studies 4 and 5). These findings emphasize the communicative effects of third-party punishment on victims, contributing to our understanding of how punishment can support them in coping.