Influences on the amount of the reward: How five-year-old children distribute rewards

Abstract

Influences on the amount of the reward: How five-year-old children distribute rewards Kiyomi Tsutsu (Mimasaka University)Five-year-old children were presented two stories in which each of two characters made different numbers of Origami stars; the total number of stars was 16 in one story and 12 in the other. The children allocated rewards to the characters and justified their allocations. There were three conditions in which the total number of rewards was equal to (Middle-N), less than (Small-N), or more than (Large-N) the total number of stars in each story. Most children allocated the rewards equally to the two characters in the Small-N condition, while almost half of the children did not employ an equal allocation in the Middle-N and Large-N conditions. This suggests that in the Small-N condition, if an equity-like allocation were employed, children would feel sorry for the character given very few rewards, and therefore they distributed the rewards equally. On the other hand, in the Middle-N and Large-N conditions, even when one character received fewer rewards than the other, the children did not feel that the fewer rewards were too few.

Psychological and sociomoral reasoning in infancy.

“…Investigations of 3-to 5-year-olds' responses in this context have yielded the same mixed results as in the resource-allocation context: When tested with firstparty tasks, preschool children show little sensitivity to merit (they keep more rewards than they should or divide them equally regardless of merit; e.g., Hook & Cook, 1979;Lane & Coon, 1972;Kanngiesser & Warneken, 2012;Lerner, 1974); when tested with third-party tasks, however, children perform better (e.g., Baumard, Mascaro, & Chevalier, 2012;Leventhal, Popp, & Sawyer, 1973;Thomson & Jones, 2005;Tsutsu, 2010). In one third-party experiment, for example, Baumard et al (2012) told 3-and 4-year-olds a simple story illustrated with pictures:…”

Preschoolers’ Distributive Justice When They Distribute Few Total Rewards in a Third‐Party Task

“…Tsutsu () conducted a third‐party experiment in which the total numbers of rewards were manipulated. In this experiment, recipients were two story characters in a vignette that showed each character's different workload.…”

“…In this experiment, recipients were two story characters in a vignette that showed each character's different workload. Tsutsu () found that most of 61 5‐year‐old children preferred equality allocations when total rewards were few, but, when total rewards were more than 10, nearly half of them carried out inequality allocations. Thus, no differences among these many reward conditions could be found, and the justification of allocation is solely related to allocation patterns.…”

“…In addition, 92% of the participants could count 25 chips. Given that Yamana () had earlier found that about 80% of 5‐year‐olds can divide 20 items into four dishes equally, Tsutsu () then concluded that the differences between few‐ and many‐reward conditions indicate a difference in judgment modes.…”

“…The effect of the total amount of rewards poses the question of whether a type of individual difference of equality‐orientation strength exists even when total rewards are few, and almost every child carries out an equality‐based allocation. In the experimental procedures employed by earlier reward distribution studies, including Tsutsu (), both equality and equity allocations were possible, but a restriction was imposed by an instruction that said that all rewards should be employed (hereafter “All”). In the procedures used, the type of individual difference is indistinguishable: That is, a “Thorough Egalitarian” who sticks to this preference in any situation is the same as a “Relativistic Egalitarian” who thinks that equality is basically good but that inequality allocation is also acceptable when equality allocation is impossible, or when a slight‐difference equity allocation is possible.…”