Third‐Party Compensation as a Mild Response to Social Injustice: A Heuristic Motivation Framework

ABSTRACT Why individuals engage in costly interventions to uphold norms of fairness and justice remains a pivotal question in social science. While third‐party punishment has long dominated the literature, recent empirical work reveals a consistent preference for third‐party compensation as a reparative intervention. However, the motivational landscape of third‐party compensation remains fragmented and poorly understood. To integrate these insights, we propose a novel heuristic framework that conceptualizes the motivations for third‐party compensation as emerging from two dimensions: self‐other referential orientation and moral character. Rather than treating motivations in isolation, this framework reveals a structured motivational architecture that explains how outwardly similar compensatory acts can arise from distinct psychological response modes—for example, those driven by self‐referential moral image versus those driven by other‐referential moral emotional responses. By offering a unified account of third‐party compensation motivation, this framework not only integrates previously scattered empirical findings but also provides a systematic analytical foundation for future research into the dynamic interplay of these motives and their neurophysiological substrates.