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Waste Aversion Reduces Inequity Aversion Among Chinese Children
Zhen Zhang1,2, Avi Benozio3
1Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Child Development
|May 13, 2021
Summary
Chinese children accept inequity when waste is present, unlike Western children. However, they avoid inequity when resources are not wasted, showing cultural nuances in fairness and waste aversion.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Cross-Cultural Psychology
- Behavioral Economics
Background:
- Fairness development involves aversion to unequal treatment.
- Western children often discard resources to avoid inequity by middle childhood.
- Thrift (waste aversion) is a significant cultural value in some societies.
Purpose of the Study:
- To assess the robustness of inequity aversion in Chinese culture, emphasizing thrift.
- To compare inequity aversion and waste aversion in Chinese children.
- To investigate cultural influences on distributive justice.
Main Methods:
- Four studies involving seven-year-old Chinese children.
- Third-party (N=83) and first-person (N=116) distributive interaction tasks.
- Evaluation of both inequity aversion and waste aversion.
Main Results:
- Chinese children accepted inequity when waste was involved.
- Chinese children avoided inequity when no waste was present, similar to American children.
- Findings suggest a cultural trade-off between inequity and waste aversion.
Conclusions:
- Cultural values, such as thrift, can moderate the development of inequity aversion.
- Waste aversion plays a role in distributive decisions among Chinese children.
- Cross-cultural differences in fairness norms are influenced by cultural emphasis on resource conservation.
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