Abstract
The present study examined how 2- to 4-year-old preschoolers in Singapore (N = 202) balance fairness and ingroup loyalty in resource distribution. Specifically, we investigated whether children would enact fair distributions as defined by an equality rule, or show partiality toward their ingroup when distributing resources, and the conditions under which one distributive strategy may take precedence over the other. In Experiment 1, children distributed four different pairs of toys between two puppets. In the Group condition, one puppet was assigned to the same group as the child while the other puppet was assigned to a different group using colored stickers in the No Group condition, no group assignments were made. Children’s distributions were assessed for whether the toys were fairly (equally) distributed or unfairly (unequally) distributed in favor of either puppet. Experiment 2 was identical to the Group condition in Experiment 1, except that a third identical toy was introduced following the distribution of each toy pair. Distributions were separately assessed for whether the first two toys were fairly (equally) distributed or unfairly (unequally) distributed in favor of either puppet, and whether children distributed the third toy to the ingroup or outgroup puppet. Overall, the vast majority of children abided by an equality rule when resources were precisely enough to be shared between recipients, but distributed favorably to the ingroup member when there was limited resource availability. We found that fairness trumped ingroup loyalty except in resource distribution involving limited resources. Our results are consistent with findings from other resource distribution studies with preschoolers and similar studies measuring young infants’ expectations of distributive behaviors in third-party observations. Taken together, there is evidence suggesting stability in the development of knowledge to behavior in the subdomains of fairness and ingroup loyalty.
Highlights
Two fundamental motivations underlie children’s decisions about resource distribution: fairness and ingroup loyalty
To test if the inclusion of predictors resulted in a significantly better model fit to the data, likelihood ratio tests (LRT) were used to compare the full model to a null model with only child ID entered as a random effect; and where predictors emerged significant, to compare the full model to a reduced model with significant predictors sequentially dropped from the full model
We examined how preschoolers in Singapore weigh concerns about fairness and ingroup loyalty in an intergroup resource distribution task
Summary
Two fundamental motivations underlie children’s decisions about resource distribution: fairness and ingroup loyalty. Researchers have proposed a principle-based conception of moral reasoning built on innate, domain-specific moral knowledge (Haidt and Joseph, 2004; Premack, 2007; Baillargeon et al, 2014). According to this view, fairness and ingroup loyalty are core principles in human moral cognition. With relation to the ingroup principle, infant studies have documented third-party expectations of ingroup support, such as the obligation to help and allocate limited resources to the ingroup (Jin and Baillargeon, 2017; Bian et al, 2018)
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