Self-punishment, the adverse treatment of the self as a response to own wrongdoing, seems dysfunctional on first sight. However, it may have interpersonal benefits, as it may affect how others perceive the offender. We argue that self-punishment communicates the offender’s reaffirmation of the violated values as well as their own status degradation. Consequently, observers may attribute more remorse to the offender who self-punish, which in turn may increase their willingness to reconcile with the offender. Four studies conducted in the US and Germany (Ns = 285, 609, 648 and 603) tested these predicted processes experimentally by crossing self-punishment with an explicit message of either value restoration or status degradation from the offender. We employed a measurement-of-process as well as a moderation-of-process approach to investigate the processes underlying the attribution of remorse. The results consistently showed that, in the absence of an explicit message, self-punishment increased third parties’ attribution of remorse to the offender, but not (or less so) when offenders issued either explicit message. Both explicit messages increased remorse attributions, but this was not further enhanced by self-punishment. This pattern of redundancy implies that self-punishment and messages of value restoration and status degradation are interchangeable in their effects on remorse perceptions. These findings indicate that self-punishment communicates value reaffirmation and status degradation, and through these mechanisms increases remorse perceptions that are linked to third parties’ willingness to reconcile with the offender. The findings provide experimental evidence for a communicative function of self-punishment that may facilitate the restoration of jeopardized relationships.

自我惩罚，作为对自己错误行为的回应而对自己不利的对待，乍一看似乎是功能失调的。但是，它可能会带来人际关系上的好处，因为它可能会影响其他人对犯罪者的看法。我们认为，自我惩罚传达了犯罪者对被侵犯价值观的重申以及他们自己的地位下降。因此，观察者可能会将更多的悔恨归咎于自我惩罚的罪犯，这反过来可能会增加他们与罪犯和解的意愿。在美国和德国进行的四项研究（Ns = 285, 609, 648 和 603）通过将自我惩罚与犯罪者的价值恢复或地位下降的明确信息相交叉，通过实验测试了这些预测过程。我们采用过程测量和过程调节方法来研究悔恨归因的过程。结果一致表明，在没有明确信息的情况下，自我惩罚增加了第三方对犯罪者的悔恨的归因，但当犯罪者发布任何明确信息时不会（或更少）。两种明确的信息都增加了悔恨的归因，但自我惩罚并没有进一步加强这种归因。这种冗余模式意味着自我惩罚以及价值恢复和地位下降的信息在它们对悔恨感知的影响方面是可以互换的。这些发现表明，自我惩罚传达了价值观的重申和地位的下降，并通过这些机制增加了与第三方与罪犯和解的意愿相关的悔恨感。这些发现为自我惩罚的交流功能提供了实验证据，这可能有助于恢复受损的关系。