A standard visual preference task was used to examine 3-month-olds' looking times at own-race versus other-race faces as a function of environmental exposure to faces from the two categories. Participants were Caucasian infants living in a Caucasian environment, African infants living in an African environment, and African infants living in a predominantly Caucasian environment. The results indicate that preference for own-race faces is present as early as 3 months of age, but that this preference results from exposure to the prototypical facial environment.

The present research investigated the developmental trajectory of infants’ fairness expectations from 6 to 15 months of age (N = 150). Findings revealed a developmental transition in infants’ fairness expectations between 6 and 12 months, as indicated by enhanced visual attention to unfair outcomes of resource distribution events (a 3:1 distribution) relative to fair outcomes (a 2:2 distribution). The onset of naturalistic sharing behavior predicted infants’ fairness expectations at transitional ages. Beyond this period of developmental transition, the presence of siblings and infants’ prompted giving behavior predicted individual differences in infants’ fairness concerns. These results provide evidence for the role of experience in the acquisition of fairness expectations and reveal early individual differences in such expectations.

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