Young children selectively ignore quality to promote self-interest

Abstract

Although there has been extensive research on how children distribute resources with respect to quantity, little is known about how these decisions are affected by resource quality. The current research addressed this question by conducting two preregistered studies in which 3-, 5-, and 7-year-old children (total N = 360) made anonymous distributions of high-quality and low-quality items. Quantitative fairness entailed distributing an equal number of items irrespective of quality, and qualitative fairness entailed distributing equal numbers of high-quality and low-quality items. In Study 1, a majority of 7-year-olds distributed resources equally between themselves and another child in terms of both quality and quantity, whereas a majority of 3- and 5-year-olds did so only in terms of quantity while giving themselves a qualitative advantage. In Study 2, a majority of children in all three age groups distributed resources equally between two other children in terms of both quality and quantity. Together with prior findings, these results suggest that children selectively ignore the dimension of quality when it serves their own interests. The results also show, for the first time, that by 7 years of age children consider quality even at the expense of their own interests and that children as young as 3 years have the capacity to take into account resource quality when making distributions.

Keywords: Distribution; Equality; Qualitative; Quantitative; Self-interest; Young children.