Rectifying social inequalities in a resource allocation task

Abstract

To investigate whether children rectify social inequalities in a resource allocation task, participants (N = 185 African-American and European-American 5–6 year-olds and 10–11 year-olds) witnessed an inequality of school supplies between peers of different racial backgrounds. Assessments were conducted on how children judged the wrongfulness of the inequality, allocated new resources to racial ingroup and outgroup recipients, evaluated alternative allocation strategies, and reasoned about their decisions. Younger children showed ingroup favorability; their responses differed depending on whether they had witnessed their ingroup or an outgroup at a disadvantage. With age, children increasingly reasoned about the importance of equal access to school supplies and correcting past disparities. Older children judged the resource inequality negatively, allocated more resources to the disadvantaged group, and positively evaluated the actions of others who did the same, regardless of whether they had seen their racial ingroup or an outgroup at a disadvantage. Thus, balancing moral and social group concerns enabled individuals to rectify inequalities and ensure fair access to important resources regardless of racial group membership.

Children’s developing metaethical judgments

“…Independent of the type of violation, children estimated their objectivist second-order judgments as more possible with age, but for relativist second-order judgments, 4-year-olds tended to be more certain than older children. The increase in children's certainty about their objectivist attitudes with age could be related to children's increasing tendency to apply moral norms like principles and understand their underlying normative reasons, to prioritize moral (e.g., fairness) considerations over (conventional) group concerns, and to align their judgment and behavior more reliably than younger children (Elenbaas, Rizzo, Cooley, & Killen, 2016;Killen, Rutland, Abrams, Mulvey, & Hitti, 2013;Rutland & Killen, 2017;Schmidt, Svetlova, et al, 2016;Shaw & Olson, 2012;Smith, Blake, & Harris, 2013).…”

Getting What You Pay For: Children's Use of Market Norms to Regulate Exchanges

“…Alternatively, one person may have many pens and the other none; an equitable distribution, in this case, gives more to the needy person. A significant body of empirical research has explored which kinds of equity considerations children attend to and when (e.g., Baumard, Mascaro, & Chevallier, ; Elenbaas & Killen, ; Elenbaas, Rizzo, Cooley, & Killen, ; Hamann, Bender, & Tomasello, ; Kanngiesser & Warneken, ; Kenward & Dahl, ; Rizzo, Elenbaas, Cooley, & Killen, ).…”

“…For example, children as young as 3.5 years help protagonists preferentially distribute to puppet friends and family members compared with strangers in third‐party contexts (Olson & Spelke, ). In a shift toward equity, children as young as 5–6 years distribute unequally to rectify third‐party ingroup inequalities (e.g., Elenbaas et al., ). Preschool children also distribute differently depending on their preference for a recipient (Chernyak & Sobel, ); children of this age will also take merit and past behavior into account when deciding how to distribute items (Baumard et al., ).…”

Morality: Cooperation Is Fundamental but It Is Not Enough to Ensure the Fair Treatment of Others

“…When disadvantaged status is based on race (African American and European American in the US context), younger children will give more to their disadvantaged in-group than out-group, but with age all children give more to the group that has been societally disadvantaged (in this case, AfricanAmerican children) [Elenbaas, Rizzo, Cooley, & Killen, 2016]. These are difficult decisions to make and demonstrate that knowledge about groups factors into children's moral judgments at an early age.…”