Some considerations for the developmental origin of the principle of fairness

Abstract

The principle of fairness is very important in social life and plays an important role in socio‐moral evaluation; in the last decade, the amount of research on this topic is increasing and suggests different considerations about its origin whether this principle is present at birth or constructed later in development. This article presents some of these considerations focused on the common aspects of innatist and constructivist views and sheds light on the role of experience. The conclusions suggest a more integrated approach, supporting that experience seems to instantiate and model an abstract representation that can be presumably innate. The pursuit of this approach could help researchers to address questions in the field.

Preschoolers' retrospective and prospective judgements of immanent justice following distributive actions

“…Based on these considerations, we speculate that the principle of fairness may have worked as a 'trigger' of any kind of justice-based judgement. Moreover, the present findings support the recent developmental view, according to which several principles drive moral reasoning from infancy (such as harm avoidance, in-group support, fairness and authority; Bian et al, 2018;Dawkins et al, 2020;Geraci, 2022;Graham et al, 2013;Ting et al, 2020).…”

“…Concerning the underlying mechanisms of judgements of immanent justice, two different and not mutually exclusive explanations may coexist. Firstly, judgements of immanent justice may derive from a strong principle of fairness that guides early moral reasoning (Dawes et al., 2007; Dawkins et al., 2020; Geraci, 2022; Graham et al., 2013; Rai & Fiske, 2011; Ting et al., 2020), and it may also help younger children interpret life events by considering a misfortune as a way to compensate for people's prior misdeeds, like adults (Baumard & Chevallier, 2012; for review see Callan et al., 2014). Secondly, preschool children may understand the social world in terms of purpose and design (i.e., a purpose‐based teleological explanation for significant life events), extending prior findings on both older children and adults (Banerjee & Bloom, 2015, 2017; Bering, 2006; Evans & Wellman, 2006; Heywood & Bering, 2014; Liquin & Lombrozo, 2018; Lombrozo & Carey, 2006; Roberts et al., 2020).…”

“…Some researchers consider the immanent justice beliefs as a product of culture and learning mechanisms, so children adopt beliefs or narratives by learning the beliefs of adults (Bering & Parker, 2006; Cornelius et al., 2011; Fitouchi & Singh, 2022; Harris, 2012; Legare et al., 2012; Legare & Harris, 2016; Weinberger et al., 2020). Other researchers support an early‐emerging moral core (Hamlin, 2013; for a review see Woo et al., 2022), and pre‐existing principles, such as the fairness principle (Geraci, 2022; Graham et al., 2013; Ting et al., 2020), which enable infants to evaluate others' behaviours (Hamlin et al., 2007; Van de Vondervoort & Hamlin, 2016, 2018; Wynn et al., 2018) and expect rewards and punishments (e.g., Geraci & Surian, 2023; Kanakogi et al., 2022).…”

Infants Infer Social Relationships Between Individuals Who Engage in Imitative Social Interactions

“…They also look longer at characters who approach other characters compared to those who approach and ‘push’ other characters (Geraci et al, 2022 ). They reach for or look longer at those who distribute resources equally or fairly (Geraci, 2022 ; Geraci & Surian, 2011 , 2023 ), those who defer in conflicts by letting someone else pass (Thomas & Sarnecka, 2019 ) and protectors over aggressors (Kanakogi et al, 2013 , 2017 ). These preferences have been interpreted as evidence for ‘an innate moral core’ (Hamlin, 2013 ; Woo et al, 2022 ) in which infants evaluate others based on whether they are morally good or bad.…”

Education to justice and infants' sense of fairness

“…In the past two decades, infant research has shown that infants as young as 3 months possess socio-cognitive capacities and make intuitive social evaluations of others' actions (for a recent review see Woo et al, 2022). In particular, studies on infants' evaluations of distributive actions shed light on an early-emerging concept of fairness (e.g., Geraci andSurian, 2011, 2023a;Schmidt and Sommerville, 2011;Buyukozer Dawkins et al, 2019; for a review see Buyukozer Dawkins et al, 2020). Crucially, other studies found a relation between fairness expectations and the presence of siblings, suggesting that daily interactions with siblings provide infants with richer opportunities for observing and participating in resource distribution (Ziv and Sommerville, 2017).…”