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Costly third-party punishment in young children
Katherine McAuliffe1, Jillian J Jordan2, Felix Warneken3
1Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States; Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States; Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, United States.
Cognition
|December 3, 2014
Summary
Young children, specifically 6-year-olds, engage in costly third-party punishment of unfairness. This behavior, while sensitive to personal cost, indicates an early capacity for promoting fairness in children.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Behavioral Economics
- Moral Development
Background:
- Adults exhibit costly third-party punishment of unfairness.
- The developmental origins of this behavior remain unexplored.
Purpose of the Study:
- Investigate costly third-party punishment in 5- and 6-year-old children.
- Examine developmental emergence of fairness-promoting behaviors.
Main Methods:
- Children decided to accept or reject resource allocations between absent peers.
- Cost of punishment was manipulated.
- Sensitivity to allocation source (selfishness vs. generosity) was tested.
Main Results:
- Six-year-olds, but not 5-year-olds, punished unfair proposals more than fair ones.
- Punishment decreased when personally costly, yet children still incurred costs.
- Six-year-olds showed reduced sensitivity to inequality stemming from generosity versus selfishness.
Conclusions:
- Costly third-party punishment is present in young children.
- Children possess an early, sophisticated capacity to enforce fairness.
- Developmental trajectory of fairness enforcement begins in early childhood.
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