1-201 - Diverse Perspectives on the Development of Fairness: Integrating Research on Prosociality, Ownership, and Distributive Justice

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Throughout development, children’s attempts to coordinate and respond to the needs, wants, and rights of others shape their broader conceptions of fair treatment. With a focus on social-cognitive and socio-emotional processes in toddlerhood and early childhood, each speaker in this integrative symposium will present novel empirical evidence on this crucial aspect of social and moral development. Capitalizing on the diversity of recent research on children’s conceptions of fairness, individual papers will address developing prosociality, respect for ownership, and distributive justice.

Paper 1 demonstrates how children’s internal arousal in response to others’ need is genuinely prosocial with evidence from urban German and rural Kenyan children from 18 months to 9 years of age. Paper 2 provides the first direct evidence that 2-year-olds recognize and respect other’s ownership rights in addition to their own with data from three studies with young Canadian participants. Paper 3 examines U.S. 3- to 5-year-olds support for a social-welfare-type program despite the presence of a free rider, indicating that later objections to such programs emerge from learned attitudes rather than folk beliefs. Paper 4 addresses low-income U.S. 3- and 4-year-olds’ views on equity, revealing how subjective perceptions of one’s own access to resources play a key role in young children’s decisions about what is fair for others.

Together, these findings highlight both developmental changes and contextual differences in how toddlers and young children of multiple cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds navigate the interpersonally and societally important questions of who needs, owns, and deserves what.

Sub Unit

• Moral Development

Chair

• Laura Elenbaas, University of Rochester

Individual Presentations

• Prosocial Arousal in Early Childhood - Presenting Author: Robert Hepach, Leipzig University

• Two- and Three-Year-Olds Respect Others’ Ownership Rights when Taking and Allocating Resources - Presenting Author: Madison Leigh Pesowski, University of Waterloo; Non-Presenting Author: Patricia Kanngiesser, Freie Universität Berlin; Non-Presenting Author: Ori Friedman, University of Waterloo

• How “Free-Riders” Influence Children’s Attitudes toward Social Welfare Programs - Presenting Author: Nicholaus Noles, University of Louisville; Non-Presenting Author: Catherine H. McDermott, University of Louisville

• Perceived Access to Resources Affects Young Children’s Views on Fairness - Presenting Author: Laura Elenbaas, University of Rochester