The impact of inequality on young children’s helpfulness to others

• In Event: Poster Session 09
  In Poster Session: PS 09 Topic - Moral Development

Abstract

Wealth inequality is increasing across the globe, and yet little is known about its effect on children’s wellbeing. Research has demonstrated that inequality is associated with negative health outcomes, including higher mortality rates, and increases in mental health disorders (Wilkinson & Pickett, 2009). Lower socio-economic status is associated with adverse behavioral outcomes in children, including less prosociality (Dodge et al., 1994; Baydar & Akcinar, 2015). Though child development research has focused on children’s emerging understanding of fairness (e.g., Blake et al., 2014), little attention has been paid to the impact of unfairness on children’s social development.
The present study analyzed how experiencing inequality affects children’s helping behaviors. Sixty 5- to 6-year-old participants (M = 70 months, 11 days; 30 girls) were randomly chosen to receive either fewer resources (Disadvantageous Inequality), more resources (Advantageous Inequality), or the same number of resources (Equality) as a hypothetical child in another room (Sam/Sally). In all conditions, an experimenter distributed three different resources (stickers, marbles, and erasers) to the child and hypothetical child; however, the amount of each resource that the child and Sam/Sally received varied in order to create the experience of inequality/equality. In the Disadvantageous condition, the child received two and Sam/Sally four of each resource; in the Advantageous condition, the child received four and Sam/Sally only two of each resource; and in the Equality condition, the child and Sam/Sally received the same amount of each resource. We then measured participants’ physical and verbal helping behavior towards a new experimenter across four different tasks, each designed to elicit help (cleaning up toys, closing a lid, putting away a game, picking up pencils; adapted from Bryant et al., 2014).
A one-way ANOVA was used to analyze children’s helping behavior with condition as a between-subjects factor. Children across all conditions did not differ in the physical help they provided F(2, 57) = 0.20, p = .817 (Figure 1). Likewise, there was not a significant effect of condition on verbal help F(2, 57) = 0.64, p = .530 (Figure 2). Combining children’s verbal and physical helping behavior also did not reveal a significant effect of condition on helping, F(2, 57) = 0.10, p = .907.
Although brief experiences of inequality did not change children’s helping behaviors in this study, further research is needed before drawing any conclusions about the effects of inequality. Future work could consider ways to increase the strength or recurrence of the experimental manipulation of inequality to more accurately represent inequality in the real world. The negative results notwithstanding, this study is a stepping stone for future experimental research examining the ways in which social inequality shapes early social development.

Authors

• Jenna Barbara Marzougui, The College of William and Mary
  Presenting Author

• Meltem Yucel, Duke University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Amrisha Vaish, University of Virginia - Charlottesville
  Non-Presenting Author