Preschoolers consider (absent) others when choosing a distribution procedure.
Journal Article (Journal Article)
This study investigated how the presence of others and anticipated distributions for self influence children's fairness-related decisions in two different socio-moral contexts. In the first part, three- and five-year-old children (N = 120) decided between a fair and an unfair wheel of fortune to allocate resources (procedural justice). In the second part, they directly chose between two distributions of resources (distributive justice). While making a decision, each child was either observed by the affected group members (public), alone (private), or no others were introduced (non-social control). Children choose the fair option more often when others were affected (independently of their presence) only in the procedural justice task. These results suggest that using a fair procedure to distribute resources allows young preschoolers to overcome selfish tendencies.
Full Text
Duke Authors
Cited Authors
- Grocke, P; Rossano, F; Tomasello, M
Published Date
- January 2019
Published In
Volume / Issue
- 14 / 8
Start / End Page
- e0221186 -
PubMed ID
- 31465446
Pubmed Central ID
- PMC6715218
Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)
- 1932-6203
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
- 1932-6203
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
- 10.1371/journal.pone.0221186
Language
- eng