ISSN 1671-3710
CN 11-4766/R
主办:中国科学院心理研究所
出版:科学出版社

心理科学进展 ›› 2022, Vol. 30 ›› Issue (9): 2004-2019.doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.02004

• 研究前沿 • 上一篇    下一篇

群体情境下儿童的分配公平性

江丹莹, 杨运梅, 李晶()   

  1. 中国科学院心理研究所, 中国科学院行为科学重点实验室, 北京 100101
    中国科学院大学心理学系, 北京 100049
  • 收稿日期:2021-07-08 出版日期:2022-09-15 发布日期:2022-07-21
  • 通讯作者: 李晶 E-mail:lij@psych.ac.cn
  • 基金资助:
    国家自然科学基金项目(31971009);中国科学院青年创新促进会资助

Children's distributive justice in group context

JIANG Danying, YANG Yunmei, LI Jing()   

  1. CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
    Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
  • Received:2021-07-08 Online:2022-09-15 Published:2022-07-21
  • Contact: LI Jing E-mail:lij@psych.ac.cn

摘要:

群体情境下儿童的资源分配决策受到群体身份、群体地位和群体规范的影响。在群体因素与公平分配之间, 儿童或坚持公平正义, 或偏向群体利益。这三种群体因素对儿童的分配公平性均造成了影响; 个体因素也会影响群体情境下儿童的分配决策。未来研究应对群体因素多加关注, 通过操控分配情境中的群体信息, 尝试探讨三种群体因素之间的相互作用, 以进一步了解复杂的群体情境下儿童的分配公平性。群体情境下影响分配公平性的个体因素也是需要未来研究逐一验证和讨论的问题。

关键词: 群体情境, 资源分配, 公平, 儿童

Abstract:

How children allocate resources in group context is affected by group factors such as group identification, group status and group norms. Faced with the conflicts between group factors and fairness, some children stick to fairness, while others might change their minds to benefit related groups.

First and foremost, the influence on children's distributive justice by in-group bias varies with age. It begins to have an impact on children's distributive justice around the age of 4, peaks at the age of 6, and slides down at the age of 8, when children prefer fairness the most. The impact of in-group bias is also closely related to how intensively children are involved in distributive tasks. The deeper children's interest is drawn into the task, the greater the impact is. When allocating resources among individuals with different merits, children are far less affected by in-group bias. What's more, the impact of in-group bias is also affected by other factors such as inter-group relations, the number and value of resources, the gender of distributor and accepter. Yet studies on these factors are limited and deeper explorations are to be expected. In the second place, children tend to match or compensate the disadvantaged and rectify injustice formed by group status. On one hand, System Justification Theory (SJT) might be an explanation of the tendency to match injustice, which states that children may justify current social situation, attributing injustice to justice reasons so that to match existing injustice is quite fair for them. On the other hand, the two opposite choices (to match or to rectify) could be explained by cultural differences, specificity of groups and the development of children's fairness cognition. Thirdly, children's distributive justice is also affected by group norms. When group norms contradict with fairness, whether it is a norm of a specific group or a norm formed out of culture and social structure, they will leave an influence on both children's evaluation on others' allocation behavior and children's own allocation decisions. Group norms are as inevitable as other group factors, yet limited research has been conducted on this issue, especially on how fairness interact with both specific and generic norms. Moreover, individual factors are also to be considered when children allocate resources in group context. Among all the individual factor, theory of mind is closely linked to children's resource allocations. Generally, children with higher theory of mind are more likely to be capable of analyzing group factors and balancing motivations to make fair decisions.

With massive studies on in-group bias, we have mastered its features of many aspects. However, the impact of group status and group norms on children's distributive justice remains unknown and intrigued. More attention should be cast on these two factors respectively. Future studies should also have attempts to probe into the interaction effects among these three group factors with more exquisite designs and tasks, thus making more sense of children's distributive justice in group context. Individual factors that matter in group context are also to be explored. It is still quite a mystery to us how theory of mind is related to children's resource allocation with information of group status and group norms in mind. Furthermore, theory of mind can also make a difference on distributive behavior of exceptional children. Clarifying its mechanism will offer a guide for future work on improve prosocial behavior of exceptional children. Meanwhile, more issues closely related to theory of mind need to be discussed, such as inhibitory control, working memory and individual experience, which also bring about changes to children's allocation decisions in group context.

Key words: group context, resource allocation, fairness, children

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