Waste Aversion Reduces Inequity Aversion Among Chinese Children

Abstract

An underlying aspect of the development of fairness is the aversion to unequal treatment toward equally deserving parties. By middle childhood, children from Western cultures are even willing to discard resources to avoid inequity. Here, a series of four studies were conducted to assess the robustness of inequity aversion in a culture that emphasizes the value of "Thrift" (i.e., waste aversion). Seven-year-old Chinese participated in third-party (N = 83) and first-person (N = 116) distributive interactions and considered both inequity aversion and waste aversion. Our findings demonstrate that Chinese children accepted inequity (unlike Americans) in the presence of waste but avoided inequity (similar to Americans) in the absence of waste. Cultural and noncultural accounts of waste aversion are discussed. (BEAA19046).

Gender and cultural differences in the development of reciprocity in young children.

“…There are good reasons to suspect that cultural differences in children’s behavior might emerge in middle childhood, as recent studies suggest that around 7 years of age is a sensitive period in which cultural values and norms become more prominent. For instance, at this age we can see cultural differences in object-related considerations, such as valuing scarcity or avoiding waste (Diesendruck et al, 2019; Zhang & Benozio, 2021), as well as differences in fairness considerations (Blake, McAuliffe, et al, 2015), favoring of friends in distributive tasks (Zhang, 2020), and expressions of gratitude via self-report questionnaires (Mendonça et al, 2018). These cultural differences regarding resources and relationships seem relevant in reciprocal scenarios as well.…”