Xu Han, Luo Lanxin, Zhu Ruida, Zhao Yue, Zhang Luansu, Zhang Yaqi, Feng Chunliang, Guan Qing
School of Psychology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China.
Department of Psychology, University of Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany.
Front Psychol. 2024 Feb 14;15:1330024. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1330024. eCollection 2024.
Fairness plays a crucial role in children's social life and has garnered considerable attention. However, previous research and theories primarily examined the development of children's fairness behaviors in the conflict between self-interest motivation and fairness-complying motivation, neglecting the influence of advantage-seeking motivation. Moreover, despite the well-established role of gain/loss frame in human decision-making, it remains largely unclear whether the framing effect modulates fairness behaviors in children. It was hypothesized that children would exhibit advantage-seeking motivation resulting in more selfish behaviors in the loss context. To examine the hypothesis, we combined an adapted dictator game and computational modeling to investigate various motivations underlying fairness behaviors of children in both loss and gain contexts and to explore the developmental directions by contrasting children and adults. In addition, the current design enabled the dissociation between fairness knowledge and behaviors by asking participants to decide for themselves (the first-party role) or for others (the third-party role). This study recruited a total of 34 children (9-10 years, = 9.82, = 0.38, 16 females) and 31 college students ( = 19.81, = 1.40, 17 females). The behavioral results indicated that children behaved more selfishly in first-party and more fairly in third-party than adults, without any significant framing effects. The computational results revealed that both children and adults exhibited aversion to advantageous and disadvantageous inequity in third-party. However, they showed distinct preferences for advantageous inequity in first-party, with advantage-seeking preferences among children and aversion to advantageous inequity among adults. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of children's social preferences and their developmental directions.
公平在儿童的社会生活中起着至关重要的作用，并已引起了相当多的关注。然而，以往的研究和理论主要考察了儿童在自利动机与遵循公平动机冲突中的公平行为发展，而忽视了追求优势动机的影响。此外，尽管得失框架在人类决策中已确立的作用，但在很大程度上仍不清楚框架效应是否会调节儿童的公平行为。研究假设儿童在损失情境中会表现出追求优势的动机，从而导致更自私的行为。为了验证这一假设，我们结合了一个经过改编的独裁者博弈和计算模型，以研究儿童在损失和收益情境中公平行为背后的各种动机，并通过对比儿童和成年人来探索其发展方向。此外，当前的设计通过要求参与者为自己（第一方角色）或为他人（第三方角色）做决定，实现了公平知识与行为的分离。本研究共招募了34名儿童（9 - 10岁，平均年龄=9.82岁，标准差=0.38岁，16名女性）和31名大学生（平均年龄=19.81岁，标准差=1.40岁，17名女性）。行为结果表明，儿童在第一方角色中表现得更自私，在第三方角色中比成年人更公平，且没有任何显著的框架效应。计算结果显示，儿童和成年人在第三方角色中都表现出对有利和不利不公平的厌恶。然而，他们在第一方角色中对有利不公平表现出不同的偏好，儿童表现出追求优势的偏好，而成年人则厌恶有利不公平。这些发现有助于更深入地理解儿童的社会偏好及其发展方向。
