How Family Socioeconomic Status Influences Children’s Responses to Fairness Violation

• In Event: Poster Session 06
  In Poster Session: PS 06 Topic - Moral Development

Abstract

Most people show a preference for fairness and aversion to inequality. However, the degree of such preferences may vary across different socioeconomic statuses (SES). Previous studies found that adults with higher SES had stronger distributive justice. Yet little research has focused on the development of such SES effects in preschoolers. As a fast-developing country, China is undergoing enormous changes that enlarge the gap between the wealthy and poor. Therefore, an important question arises: how does SES influence Chinese preschoolers’ fairness development?
To address this question, the current study tested 436 5-6-year-old children’s responses in an unfair resource-allocation task. During the task, the experimenter first asked the preschoolers to act on behalf of a puppet A, and then showed another puppet that respectively represented different recipients (each one represented as a friend, acquaintance, sibling, stranger, or disliked counterpart) in different trials. The child participants were shown that puppet A got one item whereas the other puppet got 9 items from the experimenter (1:9). They were first asked whether they like or dislike the unfair distribution. Furthermore, they were provided four options to change the unfair allocation—accepting the distribution (1:9), reversing the resources (9:1), punishing the other recipient (1:0), and dividing the resources equally (5:5). Lastly, they were asked how they thought the resources should be divided between the two puppets.
Results revealed that 1) regardless of whom the recipient was, higher SES children were more likely to indicate that they disliked the unfair distribution (Mhigh-SES = 68.6%, Mlow-SES = 35.1%), Chi-square = 164.49, df = 1, p < .001, see Figure 1A). 2) When given a chance to change the allocation, high-SES children preferred ‘equal’ method the most (M = 67.1%), but this preference was less frequently in low-SES children (M = 50.1%). Instead, low-SES children preferred both ‘reversing’ and ‘equal’, choosing more reversing (M = 25.4%) than high-SES children did (M = 16.4%), β = .72, SE = .14, p < .001 (see Figure 1B). 3) Preschoolers of different SES did not differ significantly in distributing between the two puppets, Mhigh-SES = 4.64, SDhigh-SES = 1.96, Mlow-SES = 4.58, SDlow-SES = 2.28, β = .09, SE = .13, p = .49 (see Figure 1C).
These results show that compared to high-SES children, low-SES children showed less aversion to unfairness and tended to maximizing resources for themselves if given an opportunity to make reallocation. The current study suggests that children from different SES families may follow different developmental courses of fairness concern and responses to peer conflicts of resources allocation. It thus implies that socioeconomic background should be concerned in educational practices targeting children’s morality.

Authors

• Xin Liu, Tsinghua University
  Presenting Author

• Wu Michael Shengtao, Xiamen University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Zhen Wu, Tsinghua University
  Non-Presenting Author