Beyond Resources: Fairness as Moral Regulation of Social Relationships

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

This symposium questions the widespread intuition that children's sense of fairness revolves most fundamentally around resources and how they are distributed. It presents several lines of evidence that support an alternative account: that the basic function of children's fairness concerns the regulation of ongoing social relationships.
The symposium integrates research from several populations (China, Israel, US) and age groups (preschoolers, school-age children, adults) on the role of social context on children's fairness judgments and behaviors. Using an interactive allocation paradigm, the first presentation reveals the surprising result that children can be satisfied with receiving less than their peers - as long as they experienced agency in creating these outcomes and thus a warm glow from acting generously toward another person. The second presentation examines how fairness is fundamental to the regulation of intergroup relationships and demonstrates that by middle childhood, Chinese and US children have developed a sense of fairness that transcends group boundaries. The third presentation offers an empirically informed theoretical account of the psychological mechanisms underlying the development of fairness, arguing that children's responses to unequal distributions are not grounded primarily in material concerns, but rather in interpersonal concerns: children seek equal respect.
Collectively, this symposium will provide novel insights into the interpersonal nature of the psychology of fairness across development. Our discussant will provide an integrative overview synthesizing these findings and discussing how a social-relational perspective on fairness may allow us to better understand and facilitate children's moral development.

Sub Unit

• Moral Development

Chair

• Jan Engelmann, University of California - Berkeley

Discussant

• Susan A Gelman, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Individual Presentations

• You Cannot Give her More Than me, but I can: Agency Increases Satisfaction With Inequality - Presenting Author: Alex Shaw, University of Chicago; Non-Presenting Author: Shoham Choshen-Hillel, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Non-Presenting Author: Tom Gordon-Hecker, Ben Gurion University

• Beyond our Tribe: Developing a Normative Sense of Group-Transcendent Fairness - Presenting Author: Fan Yang, University of Chicago; Non-Presenting Author: Xin Yang, Yale University; Non-Presenting Author: Yarrow C Dunham, Yale University

• Children's Sense of Fairness as Equal Respect - Presenting Author: Jan Engelmann, University of California - Berkeley