How Experiences with Experimental Inequalities Shape Children’s Behavior in Subsequent Peer Contexts

• In Event: 2-033 - Active and Reactive Roles in Allocation Contexts: Infants’ and Children’s Social Preferences, Biases, and Reciprocity

Integrative Statement

Resource disputes are common sources of conflict throughout childhood, and unequal distributions of resources are at the root of many of these disputes. For example, although children recognize the moral concern for equality (Fehr et al., 2008; Schmidt & Sommerville, 2011), they also allocate resources unequally when recipients differ in their merit (Baumard et al., 2011; Rizzo et al., 2016) and when allocating to gender ingroup and outgroup peers (Dunham et al., 2011; Renno & Shutts, 2015). Recent research has examined children’s evaluations of merit- and gender-based inequalities; yet, it remains unknown how directly experiencing a merit- or gender-based inequality influences the way children think and act in subsequent peer encounters.
The present study examined how children’s own experiences with (experimentally induced) inequalities relate to their inclusion of ingroup and outgroup peers, responses to a third-party inequality, and awareness of others’ mental states (theory of mind; ToM).
Methods
Children (3-8 years; N=162) from low- to middle-income families were recruited in the Mid-Atlantic U.S. Participants were ethnically representative of the sampling population.
A 2 (Status: Advantaged, Disadvantaged) X 2 (Inequality: Merit, Gender) between-subjects design was used. Participants first competed against hypothetical peers in online puzzles to acquire prizes. Participants either received more (Advantaged) or fewer (Disadvantaged) prizes than their peers, and the reason for the allocation was either performance on the puzzles (Merit) or shared gender with the peer allocating the prizes (Gender).
Participants were then presented with new scenarios assessing their: (1) Inclusion of gender ingroup and outgroup peers, (2) Evaluation of rectifying a third-party inequality, (3) Allocation in response to a third-party inequality, and (4) Contents False-Belief and Belief Emotion ToM assessments.
Results
Inclusion
Results revealed a main effect for Status (χ2=5.20, df=1, p=.023) and a Status by Inequality interaction (χ2=5.91, df=1, p = .015) (Figure 1). Disadvantaged children were more likely to include their gender outgroup peer than Advantaged children, especially in the Merit condition.
Rectifying-Evaluation
Results revealed main effects for Age (p=.007) and Status (p=.044), and an interaction between these factors (F(1,154)=3.85, p=.05, ηp2=.02). Younger children who were Disadvantaged were more supportive of rectification than those who were previously Advantaged.
Allocation
Results revealed main effects for Age (p<.001) and Status (p=.016), and an interaction between these factors (χ2=5.78, df=1, p=.016) (Figure 2). Younger children who were Disadvantaged were more likely to rectify the third-party inequality than those who were Advantaged. A three-way interaction with Inequality revealed that this was particularly strong in the Gender condition (p=.045).
ToM
Results revealed effects for Status on children’s False-Belief (χ2=5.18, df=1, p=.023) and Belief-Emotion (χ2=3.68, df=1, p=.055) ToM, controlling for age. Disadvantaged participants performed better on the ToM assessments.
Discussion
Novel results suggest that children’s experiences with inequalities relate to how they think and act in subsequent peer encounters. Compared to disadvantaged children, advantaged children were less likely to include an outgroup peer, rectify a third-party inequality, and accurately identify others’ beliefs and emotions. Theoretical and practical implications include how children’s morally-relevant behaviors are influenced by their experiences within status hierarchies.

Authors

• Michael Rizzo, New York University
  Presenting Author

• Melanie Killen, University of Maryland
  Non-Presenting Author