Children’s Inequity Aversion in Procedural Justice Context: A Comparison of Advantageous and Disadvantageous Inequity

Xiaoju Qiu,Liqi Zhu,Nanhua Cheng,Tingyu Li,Jing Yu

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01855

Abstract

There are two forms of unfairness widely studied in resource allocation settings: disadvantageous inequity (DI) in which one receives less than the partner and advantageous inequity (AI) in which one receives more than the other. We investigated children’s aversion to AI and DI in a procedural justice context. Children of 4-, 6-, and 8- years old were asked to spin a wheel (procedure) to decide how to allocate two different rewards with others. In each condition, they chose between a fair procedure providing equal chances for the two parties to get the bigger reward, and an unfair procedure (either a disadvantageous procedure in the DI condition, or an advantageous procedure in the AI condition). Results showed that children in the two younger age groups had a preference for the unfair procedure that would maximize their own profit in AI, but a greater aversion to the unfair procedure that would disadvantage them in DI. Eight-year-olds, however, had a greater preference for the fair procedure in AI than the 6-year-olds. In addition, the discrepancy between aversion to AI and DI disappeared in the 8-year-olds. The findings indicate children’s development of other-oriented concerns such as fairness concern and altruism in procedural justice, consistent with previous findings in distributive justice.

Highlights

Fairness is crucial for maintaining interpersonal relationship and promoting social cooperation (Brosnan and de Waal, 2014; Tomasello, 2016)
When observing a distribution made between other players, 6-year-old children would sacrifice some self-interest to punish the unequal distributor (McAuliffe et al, 2015). These findings suggest that children are aware of the fairness norm and are able to make social expectations based on their notion of fairness
Children who first engaged in advantageous inequity (AI) trials were less likely to choose the fair procedure in disadvantageous inequity (DI) (57% choosing the fair procedure) than those who first engaged in the DI condition (88% choosing the fair procedure)

Summary

Introduction

Fairness is crucial for maintaining interpersonal relationship and promoting social cooperation (Brosnan and de Waal, 2014; Tomasello, 2016). Fairness in resource allocation can be achieved in two ways: distributive justice and procedural justice (Grocke et al, 2015). When distributive justice is hard to achieve, fairness may be maintained through procedural justice — providing equal opportunities for each individual to get resources. The experimenter told the participant, “Look at these wheels. They both have blue and yellow color on it, right? Spin the wheel [the experimenter acted when she said]. When it stops, the pointer is likely to stop at the yellow zone. If the wheel stops at blue, you will get the big one, and the sheep will get the small one. If the wheel stops at yellow, you will get the small one, and the sheep will get the bigger one.” “ the experimenter checked whether participants understood how the two colors were related to the rewards [If a participant failed on the checking answer, the experimenter kept telling the instructions until the participant understood].”

Results

Discussion

Conclusion