Poster #126 - How do Infants Reason About Preexisting Resource Inequalities?

• In Event: 2-110 - Poster Session 07
  In Poster Session: PS 07 Section - Moral Development

Integrative Statement

Recent research indicates that infants expect fair outcomes in resource-allocation tasks. In most tasks used to date, a fair outcome means that potential recipients, who are initially empty-handed, receive an equal share of the resource being distributed. But what of situations where potential recipients are not all initially empty-handed? Across the globe, the gap between the rich and the poor is widening and pre-existing resources are often poles apart. Our experiment asked whether infants would consider the prior resources of potential recipients in judging fair outcomes. Prior results indicate that by 21 months of age, infants already possess a sense of equity and expect individuals to be rewarded according to their efforts and to be punished according to their misdeeds. We thus focused on 21-month-olds and examined (a) whether their concern for equity would extend to expecting a larger distribution for a disadvantaged, as opposed to an advantaged, recipient (Experiment 1), and (b) whether this expectation would change or remain the same if the specific items being distributed differed from those the advantaged recipient possessed (Experiment 2).
Infants in Experiment 1 were assigned to either a different-start condition, where one recipient had resources but the other did not, or a same-start condition, where the recipients had equal resources. At the start of the different-start condition, two assistants sat at windows on either side of an apparatus; one (advantaged) assistant had two cat toys, whereas the other (disadvantaged) assistant had none. The advantaged assistant (A1) said, “I love cats!”, and the disadvantaged assistant (A2) replied, “I love cats, too!” An experimenter (E) then opened a window in the back of the apparatus, joined the two assistants and watched as these utterances were repeated. Next, a bell rang; the assistants announced they had to leave and then exited, A1 taking her cats with her. E then brought out two cats (identical to A1’s) and either placed one cat in front of each assistant’s window (equal event), gave both cats to A1 (favors-advantaged event), or gave both cats to A2 (favors-disadvantaged event). The same-start condition was identical except that each assistant had two cats but neither spoke about cats. E either placed one cat in front of each assistant’s window (equal event) or placed both cats in front of the same assistant’s window (counterbalanced, unequal event).
In line with prior findings, infants in the same-start condition looked significantly longer if shown the unequal as opposed to the equal event. In contrast, infants in the different-start condition looked significantly longer if shown the favors-advantaged or equal event than the favors-disadvantaged event, suggesting that they expected E to give both cats to the disadvantaged assistant.
Experiment 2 was identical to the different-start condition except that A1’s items were either two toy cars or two food snacks. Results were identical to those in Experiment 1, indicating that infants’ sense of equity led them to expect E to allocate both toy cats to disadvantaged A2, regardless of which resources (toy cats, toy cars, or snacks) A1 possessed.

Authors

• Melody Buyukozer Dawkins, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  Presenting Author

• Stephanie Sloane, Family Resiliency Center, University of Illinois at Urbana Chamapaign
  Non-Presenting Author

• Renee Baillargeon, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  Non-Presenting Author