Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2019 Feb;178:1-14. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2018.09.005. Epub 2018 Oct 9.
How individuals determine what is fair and just when allocating resources is a fundamental aspect of moral development. Decisions about fairness involve considerations such as merit, which includes effort (one's own exertion to achieve a goal) and outcome (one's product). Previous research has described merit in terms of both effort and outcome (e.g., a meritorious individual is both hard-working and productive). Crucially, no research has documented whether children give priority to being hard-working (high effort) or to being productive (high outcome or product) when allocating resources. This gap in the literature obfuscates two constructs that reflect how individuals allocate resources. The current study examined this process by which children (3- to 10-year-olds, N = 100; M = 7.27 years, SD = 2.39) weighed these two different aspects of merit in their fairness decisions in several situations where levels of effort and outcome were varied. When there was a discrepancy between effort and outcome, children increasingly prioritized effort over outcome with age and allocated more resources to hard-working peers than to productive peers. Effort and outcome were also examined. In situations where only effort varied (i.e., outcome was controlled), with age children were more likely to incorporate effort into their fairness decisions; however, in situations where only outcome varied (i.e., effort was controlled), with age children were less likely to incorporate effort into their fairness decisions. Taken together, the findings suggest that as children get older, they increasingly focus on effort of individuals rather than on their productivity when distributing resources.
当分配资源时，个人如何确定公平和公正的标准是道德发展的一个基本方面。公平决策涉及到诸如功绩等因素的考虑，其中包括努力（个人为实现目标所付出的努力）和结果（个人的成果）。先前的研究已经从努力和结果两个方面描述了功绩（例如，有功绩的人既努力工作又富有成效）。至关重要的是，没有研究记录儿童在分配资源时是优先考虑努力工作（高努力）还是富有成效（高结果或产品）。文献中的这一空白混淆了反映个人分配资源的两种结构。本研究通过让儿童（3 至 10 岁，N=100；M=7.27 岁，SD=2.39）在几个努力和结果水平不同的情境中，对其公平决策中对功绩的这两个不同方面进行权衡，考察了这一过程。当努力和结果存在差异时，随着年龄的增长，儿童越来越优先考虑努力而不是结果，他们会将更多的资源分配给努力工作的同龄人，而不是富有成效的同龄人。同时还考察了努力和结果。在仅努力不同（即结果得到控制）的情况下，随着年龄的增长，儿童更有可能将努力纳入其公平决策中；然而，在仅结果不同（即努力得到控制）的情况下，随着年龄的增长，儿童不太可能将努力纳入其公平决策中。总的来说，这些发现表明，随着儿童年龄的增长，他们在分配资源时越来越关注个人的努力，而不是他们的生产力。
