Children’s allocation of resources in social dominance situations.

Abstract

Two experiments with preschoolers (36 to 78 months) and 8-year-old children (Experiment 1, N = 173; Experiment 2, N = 132) investigated the development of children's resource distribution in dominance contexts. On the basis of the distributive justice literature, 2 opposite predictions were tested. Children could match resource allocation with the unequal social setting they observe and thus favor a dominant individual over a subordinate 1. Alternatively, children could choose to compensate the subordinate if they consider that the dominance asymmetry should be counteracted. Two experiments using a giving task (Experiment 1) and a taking task (Experiment 2) led to the same results. In both experiments, children took dominance into account when allocating resources. Moreover, their distributive decisions were similarly affected by age: Although 3- and 4-year-old children favored the dominant individual, 5-year-old children showed no preference and 8-year-old children strongly favored the subordinate. Several mechanisms accounting for this developmental pattern are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

The development of children's preferences for equality and equity across 13 individualistic and collectivist cultures

“…Consequently, children in these cultures may view a hardworking recipient as socially dominant. Preschool-aged children also perceive dominant individuals as having more resources (Charafeddine et al, 2015), and a recipient's social value is influential in resource allocation decisions (Charafeddine et al, 2016). In the most individualistic societies, hardworking recipients may have greater value and children may want to ingratiate themselves with perceived dominant recipients (Olson, Dweck, Spelke, & Banaji, 2011).…”

Conceptual Development and Change Precede Adults’ Judgments About Powerful Appearance

“…They are also capable of utilizing this knowledge to identify which of two people is "in charge" within third-party interactions. For children, people that are in charge establish rules and gives orders (Bernard et al 2016;Charafeddine et al 2016), control resources (Charafeddine et al 2014;Gülgöz and Gelman 2016), are less likely to help in low-cost situations (Terrizzi et al 2020), are more likely to be imitated by others (Over and Carpenter 2014), and generally influence how other people behave in their presence (Chudek et al 2011;Gülgöz and Gelman 2016;Zhao and Kushnir 2017).…”

La politique de l’enfant et le dilemme de la hiérarchie

“…Nous avons examiné cette question dans une étude parue récemment dans la revue Developmental Psychology [7]. L'étude s'appuie sur deux expériences dont la trame consiste à présenter à des enfants une relation de dominance entre plusieurs individus.…”

“…Les enfants ont ensuite la possibilité d'agir en faveur du dominant ou du subordonné, en attribuant à ceux-ci différents niveaux de ressources. Dans la première expérience (Figure 1) En raison d'un développement moins avancé de ce que l'on appelle les « fonctions exécutives », les enfants les plus jeunes pourraient donc avoir plus de mal à inhiber l'évidence inégalitaire qui leur tend les bras [7].…”