Influential social scientists (Elster, 1989; Frank, 1988; Hirshleifer, 1987) have argued that the sanctions that enforce social norms are based on strong emotions, and that emotions are the drivers of norm enforcement decisions. Moreover, Elster (1989) argued that being the object of negative emotions such as anger causes a large disutility on its own, independent of any material losses.

Ernst Fehr, Third-Party Punishment and …, loc. 135