Cross-cultural differences in early expectations about third party resource distribution

Research using non-verbal looking-time methods suggests that pre-verbal infants are able to detect inequality in third party resource allocations. However, nothing is known about the emergence of this capacity outside a very narrow Western context. We compared 12- to 20-month-old infants (N = 54) from one Western and two non-Western societies. Swedish infants confirmed the pattern from previous Western samples by looking longer at the unequal distribution, suggesting that they expected the resources to be distributed equally. Samburu infants looked longer at the equal distribution, suggesting an expectation of unequal distribution. The Kikuyu infants looked equally at both distributions, and did not show any specific exactions. These results suggest that expectations of equal distributions in third party allocations are affected by experience of cultural variations of distributive norms and social interaction early in development.