Korean and American adolescents' judgments of group-based inequalities

The current study examined how adolescents from different cultural backgrounds perceive and reason about group-based inequalities. Korean (N = 84, 42 females) and American (N = 72, 36 females) adolescents, aged 12 to 17, evaluated resource distribution inequalities in school contexts among social groups differentiated by social class, race, and gender. Across both cultures, nearly all adolescents found race and gender inequalities unacceptable based on moral concerns for equality. However, judgments about inequalities based on social class were more complex; adolescents evaluated these inequalities as less wrong and coordinated equality concerns with other considerations. They further distinguished between two types of social class situations that varied in the level of inequality, judging group-level social class inequality as more unacceptable than individual-level inequality. Cultural variations were evident in the justifications for their evaluations: American adolescents coordinated moral concerns of equality and welfare with personal and conventional reasons, while Korean adolescents also considered moral concerns of merit and property rights. Different interpretations of situational contexts led to varying prioritizations of moral concerns across the two cultures.