Young children’s fairness judgements on the distribution of rewards and responsibilities: allocation patterns and consistencies across two kinds of distribution

ABSTRACT

The present study examined whether young children demonstrated consistencies in their allocation patterns across distributions of positive and negative resources. Preschool children from younger (age 4–5) and elder (age 5–6) classrooms were asked to allocate rewards when one person contributed more than the other and to allocate the responsibility of cleaning up the toys when only one person enjoyed the benefit of playing. By presenting two conditions for each distribution (the person who contributed more or enjoyed the benefit was the participant in one situation and the peer in the other), four allocation types (equity, equality, selfish, and generous) were identified. Children in both groups showed generous patterns in both distributions, but the differences for age were not significant. Despite more elder children applied the same rules to both distributions compared to the younger children, no age difference was found. These findings indicate key implications and scope for future research.

KEYWORDS:

• Moral development
• distributive justice
• resource allocation
• responsibility
• preschoolers

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Yuko Hashimoto is Professor in the School of Education at Kwansei Gakuin University, Japan. She has received a doctorate in Education at University of Northern Iowa. Her current research interests include children’s social and moral development, especially on children's fairness judgements in distributing resources with negative values.

Yuichi Toda is Professor at Osaka Kyoiku University. He received his M.A. at University of Tokyo, and then he studied at the doctoral course of University of Tokyo. He was a visiting fellow at Goldsmiths College, University of London during March 1998–January 1999, and a short time visiting professor of University of Vienna in summer time from 2007 to 2010.

ORCID

Yuko Hashimoto http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3435-6665

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science KAKENHI [Grant Number 25380907].