4～8 Years Old Children’s Fairness Cognition-behavior Gap Based On Social Comparison

Fairness means fair and impartial.Children’s equitable distribution behavior refers to children distribute their goods to others evenly or give resources bountifully,based on three main principles: equity,equality and need.Recent studies found that 4 years old children,or more earlier,have already had fair knowledge,but children rarely complied with it in reality,even the most basic equity principle.Currently mostly researches focus on children’s fair perception or behavior independently.There are few study attentions children’s fairness cognition--behavior gap and it’s influence factor.According to the classic paradigms,the present study aims to investigate the gap of4～8-year-old children’s fairness cognition and behavior,as well as the impact of social comparison on it.This study included two experiments.Dictator game adaptation was usd in Experiment1,depended on the equity principle to observe the 105 4～8-year-old children’s fairness cognition and behavior,compared the differences between them.Besides,the reasons of children’s distribute behavior also were corded and analyzed.To explore the influence of social comparison on children’s fair distribution behavior,upward and downward social comparisons were considered in experiment 2.Forty 6 years old children were participated in this experiment.The variant of dictator game adaptation,which created favorable and detrimental of the unfair situation,were used to investigate children’s behavior in different condition.The results suggest that:(1)4/6-year-old children showed significant difference in the gap of knowledge of fairness and behavior,4～8-year-old children readily had knowledge of fairness.Nevertheless,they failed to engage in equal sharing until age 8.(2)For the interpretation type of the behavior,children aged 4 to 8 presented a significant age difference.As children grew older,their explanation types of answers transit from focusing on desire to principle.(3)6 years old children showed significant different preference between fair distribution results and disadvantageous results.Children preferred fair distribution results instead of negative result,even they need pay a cost.Between advantageous results and fair distribution results,they preferred positive results rather than fair.It can be seen that social comparison could influence children’s distribution behavior.As they grow up,they become to overcome the initial social comparison preference that others should get less to themselves.