Beyond Reward and Punishment: Introducing Costly Countercontrol into the Study of Altruism

Behavioral accounts of altruism have focused on costly reward and costly punishment. A third facet is expressed here as costly countercontrol, defined as persistent counteraction of dominant reinforcement schemes for the benefit of others. While this form of behavior is inherently risky, it involves behavioral reversal, and if it spreads, it can trigger long-term collective benefits through sociocultural transformation. In a game scenario, it could be operationalized as establishment of other-benefiting behavioral rules despite socially enforced contingencies to the opposite. Different from moral and civil courage, it is conceptualized here from a behaviorist standpoint. Examples from real life include whistleblowing and principled dissent in support of a moral cause. The article explores the challenges of assessing such behavior and reviews selected paradigms that contain its main components. Lastly, the limitations of current artificial intelligence systems in generating countercontrol are discussed, thereby highlighting the uniquely human capacity for this antagonistic form of altruism.