Yale University, Department of Psychology, New Haven, USA.
Yale University, School of Law, New Haven, USA.
Sci Rep. 2018 Dec 10;8(1):17740. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-36072-1.
Adults prefer fair processes ("procedural justice") over equal outcomes ("distributive justice"). This preference impacts their judgments of others in addition to their willingness to cooperate, raising questions about whether similar preferences drive judgments and behavior in children. The present study examines the development of this preference for procedural justice by testing children's attitudes towards procedural justice using a resource allocation task in both first- and third-party contexts, and in contexts in which the procedurally just process does versus does not create distributional injustice. Results from children 4 to 8 years of age demonstrate that children robustly attend to and prefer procedural justice over distributive justice. However, younger children are less likely to prefer methods that are procedurally just or that create distributively just outcomes in first-party contexts, when distributive injustice might favor them. Results suggest an interplay between abstract justice concerns and the emerging ability to override selfishness.
成年人更喜欢公平的程序（“程序正义”）而不是平等的结果（“分配正义”）。这种偏好不仅影响他们对他人的判断，还影响他们的合作意愿，这引发了一个问题，即类似的偏好是否会影响儿童的判断和行为。本研究通过使用资源分配任务在第一方和第三方背景下以及在程序公正的过程是否会导致分配不公正的背景下，检验了儿童对程序正义的偏好的发展。来自 4 至 8 岁儿童的结果表明，儿童非常关注程序正义，并偏爱程序正义而不是分配正义。然而，当分配不公正可能对他们有利时，年幼的儿童不太可能更喜欢程序公正或创造分配公正结果的方法。研究结果表明，抽象正义问题和克服自私的新兴能力之间存在相互作用。
