Poster #125 - Exploring Moral Motives for Advantageous and Disadvantageous Inequality

• In Event: 3-003 - Poster Session 09
  In Poster Session: PS 09 Section - Moral Development

Integrative Statement

Research in the field of prosocial development has proposed that advantageous inequality and disadvantageous inequality decisions are affected by distinct motivations (Blake, et al,. 2015). It has been hypothesized that internalized moral values motivates children share without the expectation of external reward (Carlo, 2006). Little is known about the relative impact of moral cognition on unequal distribution of resources. In the current study a sample of 70 4-(48-63 months, M=55.28, SD=4.1) and 6-year-old (68-77 months, M=72.77, SD=2.53) children is examined by a resource allocation and a moral judgement task. In resource allocation task (i.e., stickers), children made six forced-choice decisions including three AI (2-0 vs. 1-1) and three DI (1-2 vs. 0-0) trials with a sex- and aged-matched child. Children's moral judgment was measured with a series of ten single action scenarios depicting a person conducting a harmful action on another individual either intentionally or accidentally. Participants reported their personal distress, empathic concern, judgment of meanness, and deserved punishment in a child friendly visual Likert scale.
Results demonstrated that the model of predicting sharing in DI condition by age, judgment of deserved punishment and their interaction was significant F(3, 66)= 6.91, P=.000, R2= .20. The relationship between deserved punishment judgments and Disadvantageous inequality was significant for the age starting from around 61 months to 77 months t(66)=2.38, p= .01, b=0.538. When children's age reaches to 61 months, deserved punishment judgment and DI sharing are significantly related t(66)=3.78, p= .000, b=0.080. As age increases the relationship between deserved punishment judgment and sharing in Disadvantageous Inequality condition becomes more positive with the highest age (77 months), t(3,66)= 4.44, p= .000, b=1.74. There were no relation between allocating resources in advantageous inequality condition.
We can conclude that punishment ratings for harming is related to DI sharing during middle childhood development, in which the generous option is not the fair option. However, finding no relation between deserved punishment judgment and AI sharing, in which opting the fair option scores more, would be an evidence proving the fairness foundation develops later than the care/harm foundation proposed by Haidt (2007). Therefore, being generous to others needs one to be more caring, than being fair.

Authors

• Fatemeh Keshvari, Institute for Cognitive and Brain Science, Shahid Beheshti University
  Presenting Author

• Saeed Imani, Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, Shahid Beheshti University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Mojtaba Habibi, Institute for Cognitive and Brain Science, Shahid Beheshti University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Hossein Lotfabadi, Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, Shahid Beheshti University
  Non-Presenting Author