Toddlers' interventions toward fair and unfair individuals

Ziv, Talee; Whiteman, Jesse D.; Sommerville, Jessica A.

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104781

Cited by 26 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 92 publications

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“…In other studies, 13-, 15-, and 17-month-olds have preferentially approached and accepted toys from fair vs. unfair humans (Burns & Sommerville 2014;Lucca et al 2018). Likewise, in Ziv et al (2021), 16month-olds were more likely to give resources to than remove resources from a fair distributor, but not an unfair distributor, and in DesChamps et al ( 2016), 13-and 15-month-olds expected fair distributors to be praised and unfair distributors to be admonished (DesChamps et al 2016).…”

Section: Moral Corementioning

confidence: 79%

Human Morality Is Based on an Early-Emerging Moral Core

Woo

Tan

Hamlin

2022

Annu. Rev. Dev. Psychol.

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Scholars from across the social sciences, biological sciences, and humanities have long emphasized the role of human morality in supporting cooperation. How does morality arise in human development? One possibility is that morality is acquired through years of socialization and active learning. Alternatively, morality is instead based on a “moral core”: primitive abilities that emerge in infancy to make sense of morally relevant behaviors. Here, we review evidence that infants and toddlers understand a variety of morally relevant behaviors and readily evaluate agents who engage in them. These abilities appear to be rooted in the goals and intentions driving agents’ morally relevant behaviors and are sensitive to group membership. This evidence is consistent with a moral core, which may support later social and moral development and ultimately be leveraged for human cooperation. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Developmental Psychology, Volume 4 is December 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

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Section: Moral Corementioning

confidence: 79%

Human Morality Is Based on an Early-Emerging Moral Core

Woo

Tan

Hamlin

2022

Annu. Rev. Dev. Psychol.

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“…Expectations of fair distributions emerge early in development and fairness understanding and fair behaviors increase substantially during the preschool and early school years. By at least 12 months of age, infants expect resources to be divided equally: They look longer at unequal than equal resource distributions (Schmidt & Sommerville, 2011; Sommerville et al, 2013; Ziv et al, 2021; Ziv & Sommerville, 2017). Young children also know that they should share equally with others, though it is not until about 7 to 8 years that most actually do so (Fehr et al, 2008; Smith et al, 2013).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Young children do not perceive distributional fairness as a moral norm.

Yucel¹,

Drell²,

Jaswal³

et al. 2022

Developmental Psychology

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Young children robustly distinguish between moral norms and conventional norms (Smetana, 1984;. In existing research, norms about the fair distribution of resources are by definition considered part of the moral domain; they are not distinguished from other moral norms such as those involving physical harm. Yet an understanding of fairness in resource distribution (hereafter, "fairness") emerges late in development and is culturally variable, raising the possibility that fairness may not fall squarely in the moral domain. In 2 preregistered studies, we examined whether U.S. American children who were primarily White see fairness as a moral or conventional norm. In study 1 (N = 96), we did not obtain the established moral-conventional difference needed to investigate questions about the status of fairness. We improved our design in our second preregistered study. In study 2 (N = 94), 4-year-olds rated moral transgressions (e.g., hitting) as more serious than fairness and conventional transgressions (e.g., wearing pajamas to school), but importantly, they rated fairness and conventional transgressions as similarly serious. In contrast, 6-and 8year-olds rated moral transgressions as more serious than fairness and conventional transgressions, and fairness as more serious than conventional transgressions. An additional, forced-choice procedure revealed that most 6-year-olds also categorized fairness with moral rather than conventional transgressions; 4-and 8year-olds' responses on this measure did not show systematic patterns. U.S. American children may not equate norms of fairness in resource distribution with harm-based moral norms, even into middle childhood.

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“…When infants witness agents being attacked or being treated unfairly, they prefer agents that intervene or punish the offending agent, expect others to prefer them as well, and will reward the defenders as opposed to a bystander that does nothing ( Kanakogi et al, 2017 ; Geraci, 2020 ; Geraci and Franchin, 2021 ). By 16 months of age, infants will reward a fair agent who distributes resources equally more often than they will punish this agent, and will reward the fair agent more than an unfair agent ( Ziv et al, 2021 ). Although the victims in these studies do not express distress, infants and toddlers seem to infer or anticipate their distress which likely motivates them either to act or to expect a particular outcome.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Children Consider Procedures, Outcomes, and Emotions When Judging the Fairness of Inequality

2022

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Children tend to view equal resource distributions as more fair than unequal ones, but will sometimes view even unequal distributions as fair. However, less is known about how children form judgments about inequality when different procedures are used. In the present study, we investigated children’s consideration of procedures (i.e., resource-distributing processes), outcomes (i.e., the distributions themselves), and emotions (i.e., the emotional reactions of those receiving the resources) when judging the fairness of unequal resource distributions. Participants (N = 130, 3- to 8-year-olds) were introduced to a Fair Coin (different color on each side) and an Unfair Coin (same color on both sides). In two between-subjects conditions, they watched a researcher flip either the Fair or Unfair Coin in order to distribute resources unequally between two child recipients. Participants then rated the fairness of this event, provided verbal justifications for their ratings (coded for references to procedures and/or outcomes), and rated the emotional state of each recipient (from which an Emotion Difference Score was computed). Results revealed that participants rated the event as more fair in the Fair Coin than the Unfair Coin condition. References to the outcome in children’s justifications predicted lower fairness ratings, while references to the procedure only predicted lower ratings in the Unfair Coin condition. Greater Emotion Difference Scores predicted lower fairness ratings, and this effect increased with age. Together, these results show that children consider procedures, outcomes, and emotions when judging the fairness of inequality. Moreover, results suggest age-related increases in consideration of recipients’ emotions makes inequality seem less fair, even when fair procedures are used. Implications for the development of fairness are discussed.

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Toddlers' interventions toward fair and unfair individuals

Cited by 26 publications

References 92 publications

Human Morality Is Based on an Early-Emerging Moral Core

Human Morality Is Based on an Early-Emerging Moral Core

Young children do not perceive distributional fairness as a moral norm.

Children Consider Procedures, Outcomes, and Emotions When Judging the Fairness of Inequality

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