Infants Consider the Distributor’s Intentions in Resource Allocation

Abstract

Recent experimental studies suggest that preverbal infants are able to evaluate agents on the basis of their distributive actions. Here we asked whether such evaluations are based on infants' understanding of the distributors' intentions, or only the outcome of their actions. Ten-month-old infants observed animated movies of unequal resource allocations by distributors who attempted but failed to distribute resources equally or unequally between two individuals. We found that infants attended longer to the test event showing a third agent approaching a distributor who was unable to make an unequal distribution, compared to the test event where the third agent approached a distributor who was unable to make an equal distribution of resources. Our results suggest that infants' ability to encode distributive actions goes beyond an analysis of the outcome of these actions, by including the intentions of the distributors whose actions lead to these outcomes.

Adopted Utility Calculus: Origins of a Concept of Social Affiliation

“…This prediction is borne out in research on infants’ preferences for fair over unfair distributors. Evidence suggests infants prefer people they observe distributing resources fairly and expect others to do so as well (Burns & Sommerville, 2014; DesChamps et al, 2016; Geraci & Surian, 2011; Lucca et al, 2018; Meristo & Surian, 2013; Strid & Meristo, 2020). There is also evidence that without information on prior relationships between individuals, infants expect resources to be distributed fairly (Dawkins et al, 2019; Meristo et al, 2016; Schmidt & Sommerville, 2011; Sloane et al, 2012; Sommerville et al, 2013; Ziv & Sommerville, 2017).…”

Some considerations for the developmental origin of the principle of fairness

“…Several infant studies reveal an early sense of fairness, demonstrating that infants from 4 months of age expect a fair distribution of resources (Buyukozer Dawkins et al, 2019; Schmidt & Sommerville, 2011; Sloane et al, 2012). Other works reveal that infants perceive the fair distributor as morally praiseworthy and the unfair distributor as morally blameworthy (DesChamps et al, 2015), make intention‐based evaluations of distributive actions (Geraci et al, 2022; Strid & Meristo, 2020), and also, they expect that the fair distributor should be rewarded (Meristo & Surian, 2013; Ziv et al, 2021). Furthermore, infants from 9 months of age show both visual and reaching preferences for the fair over the unfair distributor (Geraci et al, 2022), and from 15 months they expect a bystander to approach the fair over the unfair distributor (Geraci & Surian, 2011).…”

“…Moreover, prior research demonstrates that children from preschool age can verbally reason about moral intentions (Cushman et al, 2013; Grigoroglou et al, 2019; Killen et al, 2011; Proft & Rakoczy, 2019). Strid and Meristo (2020) find that 10‐month‐olds looked longer at the event showing a third agent approaching a distributor who attempted to make an unequal distribution, rather than the event in which the third agent approached a distributor who attempted an equal distribution of resources. These results demonstrate that 10‐month‐old infants' evaluations of distributive actions can take into account the distributor's intentions, extending previous findings on infants' intention‐based evaluations of helping (Hamlin, 2013b) and intervening behaviours (Kanakogi et al, 2017).…”

Analysis of the cognitive processes involved in creating and sustaining cooperative group activity

“…Already in the first year of life, infants can evaluate actions and intentions. Eight-month-old, but not 5-month-old, infants can evaluate helping intentions (Hamlin, 2013 ) and 9–10-month-old infants can evaluate distribution intentions of actions regardless of outcome (Strid and Meristo, 2020 ; Geraci et al, 2022 ). A great deal of research shows that infants have some understanding of what is open to them and what is not because of what they have jointly experienced.…”