The Development of Inequity Aversion in Children Aged 5~9 and Its Influencing Factors

doi:10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240114

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Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2024, Vol. 47 ›› Issue (1) : 113-120. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240114

The Development of Inequity Aversion in Children Aged 5~9 and Its Influencing Factors

Jiang Yi^1,2, Ding Fang¹

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Abstract

Fairness is a social norm to regulate people’s communication. The individual’s negative feeling and strong reaction to unfairness characterize inequity aversion, which can be divided into disadvantageous inequity aversion and advantageous inequity aversion. Previous studies have shown that the development of children’s inequity aversion was affected by a variety of factors, but the questions of whether different distribution modes would affect children’s two types of inequity aversion, and how distribution mode influences the two types of inequity aversion under the influence of ingroup and outgroup or reputation and other factors are still needed to be further explored. Therefore, two experiments were conducted to explore the developmental characteristics of children’s disadvantageous and advantageous inequity aversions.
In experiment 1, 240 children aged 5, 6, and 7 were selected as participants in a real assignment situation. The developmental characteristics of children’s disadvantageous inequity aversion under the different distribution modes and whether it was influenced by the factor of ingroup and outgroup were investigated by using a modified paradigm of assignment of additional resources. The results showed that: (1) The disadvantageous inequity aversion decreased with the growth of children’s age, and 7-year-old was the turning point. (2) Children’s disadvantageous inequity aversion caused by self-distribution was significantly lower than that caused by others-distribution. (3) Children’s disadvantageous inequity aversion caused by ingroup members was significantly lower than that caused by outgroup members. (4) Children’s disadvantageous inequity aversion caused by the ingroup members was significantly lower than that caused by the outgroup members under the condition of self-distribution, while there was no significant difference in children’s disadvantageous inequity aversion caused by the ingroup and outgroup members under the condition of others-distribution. (5) The 6-year-old children’s disadvantageous inequity aversion caused by self-distribution was significantly lower than that caused by others-distribution. However, there was no significant difference between 5- and 7-year-old children in the disadvantageous inequity aversion caused by the two distribution modes.
In experiment 2, 240 children aged 7, 8, and 9 were selected as participants in a real assignment situation. The developmental characteristics of children’s advantageous inequity aversion under the different distribution modes and whether it was influenced by the factor of reputation were investigated by using the modified paradigm of assignment of additional resources. The results were as follows: (1) The advantageous inequity aversion increased as children grew older, and 8-year-old was the turning point. (2) Children’s advantageous inequity aversion caused by reputation was significantly higher than that caused by no reputation. For children aged 7- and 9-year-old, their advantageous inequity aversion caused by reputation was significantly higher than that caused by no reputation, while there was no significant difference in the 8-year-old children’s advantageous inequity aversion between the condition of reputation and no reputation. (3) The effect of distribution mode on advantageous inequity aversion was not significant, and children’s advantageous inequity aversion under both two distribution modes was low.
In conclusion, the research showed that children’s two types of inequity aversion have different developmental patterns, and can be affected by the distribution mode and the factors such as ingroup and outgroup or reputation.

Key words

inequity aversion / disadvantageous inequity aversion / advantageous inequity aversion / distribution mode / ingroup and outgroup / reputation

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Jiang Yi, Ding Fang. The Development of Inequity Aversion in Children Aged 5~9 and Its Influencing Factors[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2024, 47(1): 113-120 https://doi.org/10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240114

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DOI:10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240114