The effect of economic inequality on children's prosocial behaviour

Abstract

The current thesis aims to examine the effect of economic inequality, i.e., the concentration of a majority of wealth in the hands of a minority of the population, on children’s prosocial behaviour and fairness concerns. Substantial literature in social psychology has documented how high inequality lowers prosocial behaviour in adults. However, little research has directly consulted how these economic environments affect prosociality in children. To date, developmental literature has focussed on how children perceive unequal resources and how this intersects with their developing understanding of fairness. However, this research tends to examine inequality between two individuals, rather than inequality between many. Additionally, the literature has also examined how children perceive actual inequality in their environment, and these studies often have a strong focus on children in the pre-adolescent years and above. To date however, no studies have directly addressed how exposure to inequality between many individuals may have subsequent effects on younger children’s prosocial behaviour. With the use of a novel experimental paradigm, this thesis explores how high versus low inequality alters children’s prosocial behaviour and fairness concerns. Chapter 2 provides the first test of this paradigm, and examines how high and low inequality affects pre-school aged children’s prosocial behaviour and perceptions of fairness. Chapter 3 extends upon this analysis and explores how high and low inequality affects children’s prosocial behaviour when they are either high or low earners. Finally, Chapter 4 charts how experiences of high and low inequality change as children age from the pre-school years to middle childhood, and how this exposure may affect their prosocial behaviour. Together, this thesis provides the first comprehensive investigation of how environmental inequality alters the prosocial behaviour of young children. Additionally, it showcases a novel experimental paradigm that allows for a highly controlled analysis of these experiences in children, and paves the way for future research using similar approaches. Economic inequality is predicted to increase as we progress through the 21st century and it is vital to understand how these changes will affect some of the more vulnerable individuals in society: children.