Distributive Behavior Of Children Aged 3-8 In A Context Of Social Power Inequality: The Role Of Access To Power

Power is everywhere in life,for example,some people impose their preferences on others,or monopolize the resources they all want.The power relationship is common in the social life of children and adults.Identifying power relationships can help individuals adapt to life better,so children’s power cognitive ability is very important to their social life.And social power can be obtained in different ways.Will the way of obtaining power have an impact on children’s power recognition and their social behavior? On the basis of summarizing previous studies,this study explored the influence of the way of obtaining social power on the power recognition ability and resource allocation behavior of children aged 3-8 in the context of Chinese culture.Study 1 explored the influence of ways of obtaining social power and power cues on the power recognition ability of children aged 3-8.Study 1 selected 177 subjects,and adopted 2(power attained approach: prestige strategy,dominance strategy)×3(power clues:resource control,goal achievement,permission)×3(age: 3-4 years old,5-6 years old,7-8years old)three-factor mixed experimental design.The dependent variable was the children’s power recognition score.The results showed that :(1)Children can identify the social power under the two ways of obtaining social power,but the power recognition score of children under the dominance strategy was significantly higher than the prestige strategy score;(2)The score of children’s power recognition under the goal achievement cues were significantly lower than resource control and permission cues;(3)The score of power recognition for children aged 7-8 years were significantly higher than those of children aged 3-4 and 5-6 years.Study 1 proved that children can identify the power relationship under the two ways of obtaining social power.Then,when children identify the power relationship,how does social power affect children’s social behavior?Therefore,the study 2 adopted the task of resource allocation,set up the two distribution conditions of equality and inequality,examined the influence of social power attained approach on the resource allocation behavior of children aged 3-8 years,and further explored the evaluation position of children on the two ways of obtaining power.Study 2 contained two experiments.Experiment 1 examined the influence of social power attained approach on the resource allocation behavior of children aged 3-8 under the condition of equal distribution.Study 2 selected 256 subjects,and adopted 2(power attained approach: dominance strategy,prestige strategy)× 3(age: 3-4 years old,5-6years old,7-8 years old)two-factor experiment design between subjects.The dependent variable was the resource allocation model(Equal/unequal).The results showed that :(1)There was no significant difference in the distribution patterns of children in different age groups,and all children tended to allocate resources equally;(2)There were significant differences in the distribution patterns of children under the two ways of obtaining social power.The number of children who allocate resources equally under prestige strategies was higher than under dominance strategies;(3)Under the dominant strategy,there were marginal and significant differences in resource allocation patterns among children of different ages.Equal distribution behavior among children aged 5-6was higher than that children aged between 3-4 and 7-8.Experiment 2 examined the influence of the way of obtaining social power on the resource allocation behavior of children aged 3-8 under the condition of unequal distribution.Experiment 2 selected 256 subjects,and adopted 2(power attained approach:dominance strategy,prestige strategy)× 3(age: 3-4 years old,5-6 years old,7-8 years old)two-factor experiment design.The dependent variable was the number of people in the resource allocation pattern(matching / compensation).The results showed that :(1)Under the dominance strategy,children aged 3-4 were more likely to distribute large chocolates to people with high power,and children aged 5-6 and 7-8 were more likely to distribute large chocolates to people with low power;(2)Under the prestige strategy,there was no significant difference in the distribution patterns of children in different age groups,and all children tended to distribute large chocolates to those with high powers.The findings are as follows:(1)Children’s power recognition ability increases with age;compared with prestige strategy,children are more likely to identify social power under dominant strategy,and the ability to identify resources control cues is the best;(2)Children have a preference for equal distribution.Under the condition of equal distribution,children aged 3-8 tend to allocate resources equally under the two ways of obtaining social power;(3)Under the condition of unequal distribution,3-4 year-old children are more supportive of high-power people under the dominance strategy,while 5-6 year-old children and 7-8 year-old children are more supportive of low-power people;Under the prestige strategy,children aged 3-8 are more supportive of high-power people.