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Does third-party punishment in children aim at equality?
Young-Eun Lee1, Felix Warneken1
1Department of Psychology.
Developmental Psychology
|March 24, 2022
Summary
Children
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Moral Psychology
- Behavioral Economics
Background:
- Third-party punishment is crucial for promoting fairness.
- Previous studies show children punish unfairness but don't clarify their motive: equality or byproduct.
- The developmental trajectory of egalitarian motives in third-party punishment remains unclear.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether children's third-party punishment aims to establish equality.
- To explore the developmental aspect of egalitarian motives in children's punishment behavior.
- To differentiate between intentional equality-seeking and byproduct equality in child punishment.
Main Methods:
- A preregistered study involving 60 children aged five to nine.
- Participants observed an agent making unfair resource allocations to a peer.
- Children decided on the extent of punishment, with varying levels of personal cost.
Main Results:
- Children's interventions increasingly equalized outcomes between third parties with age.
- Punishment shifted resource distribution from unequal (e.g., 3:1) towards equal (e.g., 1:1).
- Age correlated with the degree to which punishment led to outcome equalization.
Conclusions:
- Egalitarian motives to reduce payoff disparities may drive children's punishment development.
- Children's third-party punishment behavior evolves towards establishing fairness and equality.
- The findings suggest an intrinsic drive for fairness in child development.
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