Preschoolers selectively trust and selectively share with others based on their past accuracy and intentions.

This study investigated whether preschool-age children consider both an individual's past accuracy and intentions when deciding whether to trust and share with that individual. The participants, 3- to 5-year-olds (N = 168), played a searching game with partners who varied in both accuracy (accurate or inaccurate) and intentions (prosocial or antisocial). Children received advice from partners about where to look for a hidden object, earning prizes for correct guesses. Then they were given an opportunity to share their prizes with their partner. Results indicated that children trusted sources who provided accurate advice (regardless of intentions) and shared with sources who provided accurate advice or demonstrated prosocial intentions. These findings suggest that children attend to both an individual's accuracy and intentions when deciding how to interact with social partners and may weigh this information differently to make different social decisions.

Rectifying inequities in resource collection in young children.

Numerous studies have documented children's understanding of fairness through their ability to rectify inequities when distributing resources to others. Understanding fairness, however, involves more than just applying norms of equity when distributing resources. Children must also navigate situations in which resources are collected from them for a common good. The developmental origins and the trajectory of equitable resource collection are understudied in the literature on children's prosocial behavior. Experiment 1 presented 4- to 8-year-olds (N = 130) with characters who started with different amounts of resources that were available for both personal use and a group project in school. Participants were asked how a teacher should fairly collect resources from the two characters, contrasting the teacher taking the same amount of resources from each individual (preserving the inequity) or leaving each individual with the same amount of resources (rectifying the inequity). Four- and 5-year-olds responded randomly; 6- to 8-year-olds preferred to rectify the inequity. Experiment 2 reproduced this finding on a new group of 5- to 7-year-olds (N = 69), eliciting justifications for their choice. Justifications in terms of fairness related to equitable choices. Experiment 3 reproduced this finding again in a new group of 5- to 7-year-olds (N = 77), contrasting children's preference for equitable resource collection with that of resource distribution. Children were more likely to rectify an inequity when collecting resources than when distributing resources to individuals who started with an inequity. This difference was driven more by the younger children in the sample. We discuss potential mechanisms for these findings in terms of children's developing concepts of fairness. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Across three experiments, children developed preferences for equitable collection of resources by age 6. Preferences for equitable resource collection were more likely to be justified by appealing to concepts of fairness. Although preferences for equitable resource collection emerged slightly before equitable resource distribution, these data suggest children develop a unified mechanism for prosocial resource allocation.

Perspective taking as a mechanism for children's developing preferences for equitable distributions.

How do young children develop a concept of equity? Infants prefer dividing resources equally and expect others to make such distributions. Between the ages of 3-8, children begin to exhibit preferences to avoid inequitable outcomes in their distributions, dividing resources unequally if the result of that distribution is a more equitable outcome. Four studies investigated children's developing preferences for generating equitable distributions, focusing on the mechanisms for this development. Children were presented with two characters with different amount of resources, and then a third character who will distribute more resources to them. Three- to 8-year-olds were asked whether the third character should give an equal number of resources to the recipients, preserving the inequity, or an unequal number to them, creating an equitable outcome. Starting at age 7, children showed a preference for equitable distributions (Study 1, N = 144). Studies 2a (N = 72) and 2b (N = 48) suggest that this development is independent of children's numerical competence. When asked to take the perspective of the recipient with fewer resources, 3- to 6-year-olds were more likely to make an equitable distribution (Study 3, N = 122). These data suggest that social perspective taking underlies children's prosocial actions, and supports the hypothesis that their spontaneous capacity to take others' perspectives develops during the early elementary-school years.