Fair sharing is just caring: Links between justice sensitivity and distributive behavior in middle childhood

Abstract

Justice sensitivity (JS), the tendency to perceive and adversely respond to injustice, was related to prosocial behavior in different age groups and to distributive preferences in adults. To test influences of JS on sharing and distributive preferences, middle childhood as an important phase for moral development may be particularly interesting. We asked 1320 5- to 12-year-old children (M = 8.05 years, SD = 1.02; 51.2 % girls, 1.3 % transgender and gender-nonconforming) to read five vignettes that made salient the different principles of distributive justice (equality, merit, and need) and to distribute imaginary sweets between themselves and one described child (sharing) or between two described children (distributing). Children also rated their JS, and parents rated children’s theory of mind (ToM) abilities and empathy. More concerns for justice for the self (victim JS) predicted distributions following the merit principle and a preference for need over equality and merit when forced to choose among the three. Caring for justice for others (altruistic JS) predicted more sharing, equal distributions, less distributions according to the merit principle, and a preference for equal distributions over merit and need when forced to choose among the three. These associations prevailed when ToM and empathy were included as control variables. The findings underline the importance of justice-related personality traits, such as JS, for moral development in middle childhood.