Abstract
Fairness is one of the most important foundations of morality and may have played a key role in the evolution of cooperation in humans beings. As an important type of fairness concern, inequity aversion is the preference for fairness and the resistance to inequitable outcomes. To examine the early development of fairness preference in young children, sixty 2- and 3-year-old children were recruited to examine young children’s preferences for fairness using a forced choice paradigm. We tested how toddlers acted when they took charge of distributing resources (two candies) to themselves and others and when they were the recipients of both other-advantageous distribution and self-advantageous distribution. Different alternative options were paired with the same fair option in the two conditions. In the other-advantageous condition, children had fewer resources in the alternative options than others, whereas their resources in the alternative options were greater than others’ in the self-advantageous condition. The results showed that more children displayed fairness preferences when they distributed resources between two friends than when they distributed resources between a friend and themselves. In both scenarios, 3-year-old children were more likely to demonstrate fairness preference than 2-year-old children. The findings suggest that inequity aversion develops in young children and increases with age over the course of early childhood. When they were recipients, there was a trend in young children’s preference for fairness in the other-advantageous condition compared with the self-advantageous condition. This suggests that children might tend to be more likely to display inequity aversion when they are in a disadvantageous position.
Highlights
As the philosopher John Rawls noted, ‘the fundamental idea in the concept of justice is fairness’ (Rawls, 1958)
We hypothesized that young children would allocate resources when they were distributors, that the preference for fairness would increase with age, and that when they were recipients, children as young as 2 years old would prefer proposers who allocated resources
This study aimed to examine the development of fairness preferences in 2- and 3-year-old Chinese children as distributors and recipients
Summary
As the philosopher John Rawls noted, ‘the fundamental idea in the concept of justice is fairness’ (Rawls, 1958). Fairness is one of the most important foundations of morality in both older (Piaget, 1965; Kohlberg, 1969) and newer (Haidt and Graham, 2007) theories of moral psychology. Fairness concerns have received much attention in the areas of behavioral economics (Fehr and Schmidt, 1999), psychology (Declerck et al, 2009) and evolutionary biology (Fehr and Fischbacher, 2003; Bräuer et al, 2006). Human beings have a substantial desire for fairness and show strong aversions to inequity (Fehr and Schmidt, 1999). Even third parties who do not personally suffer from the inequity will punish others for unfair behavior to achieve fairness (Fehr and Fischbacher, 2004; Dawes et al, 2007; Fehr et al, 2008b). Inequity aversion and the rejection of unfairness are considered essential for maintaining cooperation and reducing
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
