Big dreams: Age-related changes in wealth-related moral expectations

• In Event: Children's reasoning about wealth and poverty: Causal mechanisms and intersectional approaches

Abstract

Do children associate wealth with morality? Prior research has found a positive relationship between wealth and positive traits (intelligence, motivation, popularity, and responsibility (Baldus & Tribe 1978; Sigelman 2012; Shutts et al., 2016). Prior research, however, has not investigated whether these wealth biases extend to expectations for positive behaviors. On the one hand, wealth biases for traits may be due to a general positivity bias for people with access to resources. On the other hand, if children form causal theories on how access to power may lead to corruption, children may associate wealth with negative behaviors. This study investigates whether these wealth biases extend to their moral expectations of others’ behaviors.

In Study 1 (pre-registered), we investigated whether children between the ages of 6 to 8 used wealth as a cue for moral expectations of others. Seventy-two children were introduced to two individuals of varying wealth, Jamie (wealthy) and Alex (not wealthy). Children were then asked about 17 positive and negative actions and asked to select which character (wealthy vs. not wealthy) was the one who did that action (“One of these people shared a toy with their friend. Who do you think shared a toy with their friend?”). We found that older children were more likely than younger children to associate the wealthy individual with negative actions (e.g. refusing to pick up trash, cheating on a game) and the less wealthy individual with positive actions (sharing a toy, cleaning the dishes). Additionally, it should be noted we found strong developmental change with age. At the age of 6 children’s moral expectations were at chance, but by the age of 8 children expected the wealthy person to have bad behavior. This study suggested that wealth biases exist, but children specifically associated bad behavior with wealth.

In a pre-registered follow-up study (N = 18, Target N = 72), we aim to replicate the wealth biases and moral expectations found in study 1. Additionally, we are exploring how causal attributions of wealth (e.g., whether wealth is defined as luck, hard work, and/or competence) or individual differences in beliefs about social mobility of wealth (e.g., whether someone who has a lot of money will always have a lot of money) predicts and explains our previously-found age-related changes in wealth biases). This research helps better understand how wealth impacts children’s moral evaluations and ultimately, how children use social class when choosing whom to interact with. This study examines the specific nature of previously-documented wealth biases. Specifically, this work suggests that the relationship between wealth and positive traits does not translate to expectations of positive behavior, and may instead suggest that our theories about how people come into wealth are systematically related to our moral expectations of them.

Authors

• Cassidy Faith Wolfe, University of California - Irvine
  Presenting Author

• Nadia Chernyak, University of California - Irvine

• Tamar Kushnir, Duke Univeristy