“I pick you”: the impact of fairness and race on infants’ selection of social partners

Monica P. Burns,Jessica A. Sommerville

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00093

Abstract

By 15 months of age infants are sensitive to violations of fairness norms as assessed via their enhanced visual attention to unfair versus fair outcomes in violation-of-expectation paradigms. The current study investigated whether 15-month-old infants select social partners on the basis of prior fair versus unfair behavior, and whether infants integrate social selections on the basis of fairness with the race of the distributors and recipients involved in the exchange. Experiment 1 demonstrated that after witnessing one adult distribute toys to two recipients fairly (2:2 distribution), and another adult distribute toys to two recipients unfairly (1:3 distribution), Caucasian infants selected fair over unfair distributors when both distributors were Caucasian; however, this preference was not present when the fair actor was Asian and the unfair actor was Caucasian. In Experiment 2, when fairness, the race of the distributor, and the race of the recipients were fully crossed, Caucasian infants’ social selections varied as a function of the race of the recipient advantaged by the unfair distributor. Specifically, infants were more likely to select the fair distributor when the unfair recipient advantaged the Asian (versus the Caucasian) recipient. These findings provide evidence that infants select social partners on the basis of prior fair behavior and that infants also take into account the race of distributors and recipients when making their social selections.

Highlights

The ability to actively select social partners on the basis of relevant characteristics critically shapes the acquisition of knowledge; selecting social partners constrains the kinds of people to which an individual is exposed which can, in turn, guide subsequent attitudes and behaviors
When given the opportunity to select toys associated with native language speakers over those associated with non-native language speakers infants prefer toys offered by native language speakers, suggesting that infants may use social category information to guide their social selections (Kinzler et al, 2012)
Our findings suggest that when fairness and race are pitted against one another, there is no evidence that infants systematically select the fair actor at rates above chance

Summary

Introduction

The ability to actively select social partners on the basis of relevant characteristics critically shapes the acquisition of knowledge; selecting social partners constrains the kinds of people to which an individual is exposed which can, in turn, guide subsequent attitudes and behaviors. A variety of research suggests that adults systematically select social partners on the basis of several dimensions, including an individual’s social history and an individual’s social category membership. The roots of the tendency to select social partners on the basis of social history and social category membership can be traced back to childhood: children tend to have friends who are of the same gender (Martin and Fabes, 2001) and of the same race (Katz, 2003). When given the opportunity to select toys associated with native language speakers over those associated with non-native language speakers (i.e., those who speak with an accent) infants prefer toys offered by native language speakers, suggesting that infants may use social category information to guide their social selections (Kinzler et al, 2012)

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