Role of socioeconomic status in children's resource allocation under inequality

This study investigated how immediate resource wealth and socioeconomic status influence allocation decisions in children aged 6 - 9 years (N = 189, Mage = 8.00 years; 91 girls; all mixed-class Han Chinese) through three experiments. Experiment 1 examined children's resource allocation in unequal situations, revealing that, with age, children increasingly allocated more resources to recipients in relatively advantageous conditions. Experiments 2a and 2b specifically investigated how subjective and objective socioeconomic status influenced children's fairness allocation behavior in unequal situations. The results demonstrated that children with a higher subjective socioeconomic status (SSS) allocated fewer resources to recipients when in disadvantaged situations. In third-party distribution tasks, individuals with lower SSS allocated more resources to disadvantaged recipients. These findings suggest that SSS significantly influences allocation decisions, revealing important developmental patterns in fairness behavior during early childhood.