Poster #123 - Children’s Third-Party Punishment of Unfairness in Outgroups: The Roles of Outgroup Norms and Theory of Mind

• In Event: 3-159 - Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: PS 12 Section - Moral Development

Integrative Statement

Humans have strong and early-emerging tendencies to maintain fairness norms even as third-party bystanders. Recent research has revealed that young children’s norm enforcement is sensitive to group contexts (e.g., Jordan, McAuliffe, & Warneken, 2014), but the findings on children’s punishment of outgroup norm violations have been mixed: Some findings suggest that children punished out-group violations more harshly than those of in-groups (e.g., Jordan et al., 2014), whereas others suggest children are more likely to tolerate outgroups’ violations (e.g., Schmidt, Rakoczy, & Tomasello, 2012). Our study aims to more closely examine children’s norm enforcement in outgroups, especially the roles of outgroup norms and theory of mind in children’s third-party punishment of unfairness. To answer these questions, the current experiment tested 48 children aged 4-5. At the beginning, each child was randomly assigned to one of 4 groups, and then played a Third-party punishment (TPP) game. In the game, the child observed allocations within 3 out-groups (i.e., three pair of out-group allocators and recipients) as a bystander. All allocations were unfair ones (3:1), but the child was told that the norm within each out-group was different: ambiguous norm (we did not tell the child whether the group preferred fair or unfair allocations), fair norm (the group preferred 2:2), unfair norm (the group preferred 3:1). Each out-group involved 3 trials (three kinds of materials), resulting in a total of 9 trials. For each trial, we asked the child her/his attitude towards the allocations (i.e., whether the allocation was okay or not okay), and whether s/he would accept the allocation (i.e., the allocator and recipient got original allocation, 3:1) or punish the allocator (i.e., the allocator lost all while recipient got original allocation, 0:1). After the TPP task, we tested the child’s False Belief Theory of Mind (FB ToM). We found that: 1) in the ambiguous norm condition, children with FB ToM evaluated unfair distributions as worse and punished more than did children without FB ToM.. 2) in the fair norm condition, children with FB ToM evaluated unfair distributions as worse, but did not punish more than did children without FB ToM,; 3) in the unfair norm condition, all children evaluated unfair allocations as better than those in the other two conditions. These findings reveal early sensitivity towards outgroup norms as well as the role of ToM in children’s attitudes and punishment behaviors. Particularly, when outgroups held unfairness norms, children were able to appreciate that norm, regard the unfair allocations as acceptable and withhold punishment. When outgroups held ambiguous or fair norms, children negatively evaluated and punished the unfair allocations, but children with ToM had an even stronger tendency to do so. The current study illuminates the motivations underlying third-party punishment towards outgroups at an early age, as well as the significant function of social-cognitive ability in the norm enforcement process.

Authors

• Rui Guo, Tsinghua University
  Presenting Author

• Fan Yang, Yale University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Zhen Wu, Tsinghua University
  Non-Presenting Author