are constantly beaten into children’s heads; these are communities where every child gets a prize and everyone is above average.
This sort of experience probably has some influence. But a series of recent studies shows that an equality bias emerges long before schools and day cares have a chance to shape children’s preferences.
In one of these studies, the psychologists Alessandra Geraci and Luca Surian showed ten- and sixteen-month-olds puppet shows in which a lion and a bear each distributed two multicolor disks to a donkey and a cow. The lion (or the bear, on alternate trials) gave each animal one disk, and the bear (or the lion) gave one animal two disks and the other nothing. The children were then shown the lion and the bear and asked, “Which one is the good one?Please show me the good one.” The ten-month-olds chose randomly, butthe sixteen-month-olds preferred the fair divider.
The psychologists Marco Schmidt and Jessica Sommerville did a similar study with fifteen-month-olds, using actual people instead of toy animals but, again, showing a fair division and an unfair division. They found thatthe fifteen-month-olds looked longer at the unfair division, suggesting that they found it surprising. (A control study ruled out the possibility that toddlers just look longer at asymmetric displays.)
Other research suggests thatchildren can sometimes override their focus on equality. In an experiment by psychologists Stephanie Sloane, Renee Baillargeon, and David Premack, nineteen-month-olds observed as two individuals playing with toys were told by a third party to start cleaning up. When both individuals cleaned up, the toddlers expected the experimenter to later reward them equally, looking longer if she didn’t. But when one character did all the work and the other was a slacker who continued to play, babies looked longer when the experimenter rewarded both characters, presumably because they didn’t expect equal reward for unequal effort.
Also, when given an uneven number of resources to distribute,children are smart about what to do with the extra resources. As mentioned above, six- to eight-year-olds would rather toss away a fifth eraser than have an unequal division between two characters who cleaned a room. But if you just add one sentence—“Dan did more work thanMark”—almost all children change their answers. Instead of throwing away the eraser, they want to hand it over to Dan. Remember also the experiment in which children got to distribute resources through a doll and, when there was an even number of resources, tended to distribute them equally. The same researchers found that if there was an odd number of resources and children weren’t given the option of throwing one away, three-year-olds would have the doll give more to siblings and friends than to strangers; give more to someone who had previously given the doll something than to someone who hadn’t; and give more to someone who was generous to a third person than to someone who wasn’t.
Young children don’t know everything.Some experiments that I’ve done with the psychologists Koleen McCrink and Laurie Santos find that older children and adults think about relative generosity in terms of proportion—an individual with three items who gives away two is “nicer” than someone with ten items who gives away three—while young children focus only on absolute amount.And other studies find that our understanding of the factors that can justify inequality—such as luck, effort, and skill—develops even through adolescence.
What we do see at all ages, though, is an overall bias toward equality. Children expect equality, prefer those who divide resources equally, and are strongly biased to divide resources equally themselves. This fits well with a certain picture of human nature, which is that we are born with some sort of fairness instinct:we are natural-bornegalitarians. As the primatologist Frans de Waal puts it: “Robin Hood had
This sort of experience probably has some influence. But a series of recent studies shows that an equality bias emerges long before schools and day cares have a chance to shape children’s preferences.
In one of these studies, the psychologists Alessandra Geraci and Luca Surian showed ten- and sixteen-month-olds puppet shows in which a lion and a bear each distributed two multicolor disks to a donkey and a cow. The lion (or the bear, on alternate trials) gave each animal one disk, and the bear (or the lion) gave one animal two disks and the other nothing. The children were then shown the lion and the bear and asked, “Which one is the good one?Please show me the good one.” The ten-month-olds chose randomly, butthe sixteen-month-olds preferred the fair divider.
The psychologists Marco Schmidt and Jessica Sommerville did a similar study with fifteen-month-olds, using actual people instead of toy animals but, again, showing a fair division and an unfair division. They found thatthe fifteen-month-olds looked longer at the unfair division, suggesting that they found it surprising. (A control study ruled out the possibility that toddlers just look longer at asymmetric displays.)
Other research suggests thatchildren can sometimes override their focus on equality. In an experiment by psychologists Stephanie Sloane, Renee Baillargeon, and David Premack, nineteen-month-olds observed as two individuals playing with toys were told by a third party to start cleaning up. When both individuals cleaned up, the toddlers expected the experimenter to later reward them equally, looking longer if she didn’t. But when one character did all the work and the other was a slacker who continued to play, babies looked longer when the experimenter rewarded both characters, presumably because they didn’t expect equal reward for unequal effort.
Also, when given an uneven number of resources to distribute,children are smart about what to do with the extra resources. As mentioned above, six- to eight-year-olds would rather toss away a fifth eraser than have an unequal division between two characters who cleaned a room. But if you just add one sentence—“Dan did more work thanMark”—almost all children change their answers. Instead of throwing away the eraser, they want to hand it over to Dan. Remember also the experiment in which children got to distribute resources through a doll and, when there was an even number of resources, tended to distribute them equally. The same researchers found that if there was an odd number of resources and children weren’t given the option of throwing one away, three-year-olds would have the doll give more to siblings and friends than to strangers; give more to someone who had previously given the doll something than to someone who hadn’t; and give more to someone who was generous to a third person than to someone who wasn’t.
Young children don’t know everything.Some experiments that I’ve done with the psychologists Koleen McCrink and Laurie Santos find that older children and adults think about relative generosity in terms of proportion—an individual with three items who gives away two is “nicer” than someone with ten items who gives away three—while young children focus only on absolute amount.And other studies find that our understanding of the factors that can justify inequality—such as luck, effort, and skill—develops even through adolescence.
What we do see at all ages, though, is an overall bias toward equality. Children expect equality, prefer those who divide resources equally, and are strongly biased to divide resources equally themselves. This fits well with a certain picture of human nature, which is that we are born with some sort of fairness instinct:we are natural-bornegalitarians. As the primatologist Frans de Waal puts it: “Robin Hood had
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