Poster #131 - The development of a sense of intergroup fairness

• In Event: 2-055 - Poster Session 06
  In Poster Session: PS 06 Section - Moral Development

Integrative Statement

Fairness is one of our most fundamental moral concerns. Even from the beginning of life, infants expect equal resource allocations among third-parties (e.g., Sloane, Baillargeon, & Premack, 2012). But what are the boundaries of our sense of fairness? Do we apply the fairness principle only among ingroup members, or do we have a sense of intergroup fairness such that we expect people from ingroups and outgroups to be treated equally? Despite abundant research on children’s sense of fairness between disinterested third-parties, much less is known about the development of a sense of intergroup fairness. Our project explores the emergence of this crucial moral concern, especially the roles of type of group (meaningful vs. meaningless groups) and whether the stakes are high or low for the parties involved.

In Study 1, to get a general sense of the influences of group contexts and stakes, we randomly assigned a sample of adults (N = 580) to one of three groups: Family (i.e., families vs. strangers), Political (i.e., people sharing the same vs. different political affiliations), or Minimal (i.e., people in the same vs. different arbitrary groups). Participants read a high stakes scenario and a low stakes scenario (distributing water to thirsty vs. not thirsty people). Participants chose between a fair split or giving more to the ingroup. We asked what they would do (decision), what the right choice was (moral), and what most people would do (norm). Results indicated participants endorsed fairness most for the moral question and least for the norm question, p < .001. We also found consistent context × stake interactions across DVs (p < .001): at low stakes, participants were similarly fair across groups; but at high stakes, they were less fair in family than the other contexts. These results suggest that both group context and stakes influence our sense of intergroup fairness.

In the second study, we examine the emergence and development of intergroup fairness. Following Study 1, we presented similar scenarios to 4-12-year-old children (N= 50, data collection ongoing), who were randomly assigned to either the Family group or the Minimal group and who responded to the same DVs. Our current analysis reveals that overall, similar to adults, children’s responses were the most fair for the moral question and most biased for the norm question, p < .01. But importantly, we also observed a significant effect of age: older children (aged 9 and above) were more fair than younger children (4-8-year-olds) across group contexts and stakes (fair responses = 50% and 25% of total trials respectively), driven by older children being more fair than younger children in the minimal groups condition as well as when stakes were low.

Together, these results suggest that children start out relatively biased and then develop a sense of intergroup fairness. Further, sensitivity to the nature of the group and the stakes develops only gradually. These findings contribute to a more complete picture of our broader sense of fairness, with significant practical implications for intergroup relations.

Authors

• Fan Yang, Yale University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Xin Yang, Yale University
  Presenting Author

• Yarrow Dunham, Yale
  Non-Presenting Author