Poster #60 - Children’s allocation of resources in the presence and absence of a social partner

• In Event: Poster Session 10

Abstract

The fairness literature suggests that although preschool-aged children have some conceptual knowledge of fairness, they do not necessarily behave fairly when asked to distribute resources among themselves and others (Smith et al., 2013; Blake et al., 2014). One possible reason for this disconnect between knowledge and behavior is that much of what we know about the development of fairness in young children has been examined in the absence of a tangible social partner.
In the present study (data collection ongoing), we examined whether the presence of the social partner can elicit greater sharing responses in a first-party setting. Children watched an experimenter distribute an uneven number of stickers among the child and two confederates, giving four stickers to the child, four stickers to an advantaged confederate, and one sticker to a disadvantaged confederate. For half of the children, the confederates were present live via Zoom, while the other half were just shown photographs of the confederates. We then provided the child with three additional stickers to distribute between themselves and the confederates. We examined whether the presence or absence of a social partner affects their distribution.
Age, condition, and the interaction of age and condition did not predict whether the children behaved selfishly. Of the children who shared fairly, age was a significant predictor, χ2(1) = 8.93, p < .005, with older children correcting the unfair distribution more often than the younger children, who were more likely to behave selfishly or to distribute one sticker to each participant. The interaction of age and condition improved this model, χ2(1) = 3.92, p < .05, with children in the social condition correcting the initial unfair distribution more often than children in the non-social condition. None of the models were significant when examining the children who gave all three stickers to the disadvantaged confederate and whether they provided fairness-related responses when asked to justify their distribution, as 77.8% of the children provided a fairness-related response. Conversely, when we asked the children who shared one sticker per person to justify their distribution, age was a marginally significant predictor of children’s responses, 𝜒2 (1) = 3.74, p = .053, with older kids providing fairness related responses, and the interaction of age and condition significantly improving this model, 𝜒2 (1) = 3.91, p < .05, with those in the social condition providing more fairness-related responses by age 5, suggesting that it was the presence of the social partner that was driving their responses.
Overall, the availability of social context alone did not predict children’s sharing behavior, as children seemed to prefer to maintain an advantage over the confederates, regardless of condition. However, when breaking down the behaviors of the children that shared fairly, children showed more consideration for the initial distribution with age, as they increasingly gave all three stickers to the disadvantaged confederate, especially when they were in the social condition, suggesting that social context is beginning to matter by the age of 5.

Authors

• Emily Kim, University of Toronto
  Presenting Author

• Vanessa LoBue, Rutgers University