Young children’s development of fairness preference
Fairness is one of the most important foundations of morality and may have played a key role in the evolution of cooperation in humans. As an important type of fairness concern, inequity aversion is the preference for fairness and the resistance to inequitable outcomes. To examine the early developm...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2016-08-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Psychology |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01274/full |
| _version_ | 1819259586460254208 |
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| author | Jing Li Wen Wang Jing Yu Liqi Zhu |
| author_facet | Jing Li Wen Wang Jing Yu Liqi Zhu |
| author_sort | Jing Li |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Fairness is one of the most important foundations of morality and may have played a key role in the evolution of cooperation in humans. 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, three-year-old children were more likely to demonstrate fairness 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. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-23T19:12:22Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-79e71b058acc4bc899361818e0845882 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1664-1078 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-23T19:12:22Z |
| publishDate | 2016-08-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Psychology |
| spelling | doaj.art-79e71b058acc4bc899361818e08458822022-12-21T17:34:24ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782016-08-01710.3389/fpsyg.2016.01274187859Young children’s development of fairness preferenceJing Li0Wen Wang1Jing Yu2Liqi Zhu3Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of SciencesMichigan State UniversityUniversity of MarylandInstitute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of SciencesFairness is one of the most important foundations of morality and may have played a key role in the evolution of cooperation in humans. 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, three-year-old children were more likely to demonstrate fairness 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.http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01274/fulldistributionfairnessinequity aversionyoung childrenforced choice paradigm |
| spellingShingle | Jing Li Wen Wang Jing Yu Liqi Zhu Young children’s development of fairness preference Frontiers in Psychology distribution fairness inequity aversion young children forced choice paradigm |
| title | Young children’s development of fairness preference |
| title_full | Young children’s development of fairness preference |
| title_fullStr | Young children’s development of fairness preference |
| title_full_unstemmed | Young children’s development of fairness preference |
| title_short | Young children’s development of fairness preference |
| title_sort | young children s development of fairness preference |
| topic | distribution fairness inequity aversion young children forced choice paradigm |
| url | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01274/full |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT jingli youngchildrensdevelopmentoffairnesspreference AT wenwang youngchildrensdevelopmentoffairnesspreference AT jingyu youngchildrensdevelopmentoffairnesspreference AT liqizhu youngchildrensdevelopmentoffairnesspreference |