Developmental Characteristics And Affecting Factors Of Fair Distribution Behavior Within 5 To 10 Years Old Children

Fairness is an important issue in social life.The fair distribution is one of the important contents of children's moral development,and also the basis for children's cooperation and sharing behavior.Different from with animals,human resource sharing behavior is restricted by social norms and fair or equitable standards.In recent years,China has made valuable results on the definition,structure,development and influencing factors of children's fair cognition and fair behavior,but has hardly seen the fair behavior of children under different resource acquisition methods.And rarely for fair distribution behavior under the contribution principle.The current research tested 441 children aged 5-10 years as subjects,to explore the age development characteristics and influencing factors of children's fair distribution behavior by assignment tasks.The study consists of two sub-studies,includes four experiments: Study1 explores the impact of resource acquisition methods and contribution ratios on children's fair behavior in third-party situations;Study2 explores the impact of resource acquisition methods and contribution ratios on children's fair behavior in first-party situations.Research shows that:(1)There is a significant effect on fair distribution behavior,regardless of whether they are involved or not involved in the situation.Children make more self-interested distribution when receive resources effortlessly than laboriously,and7-8 age groups are prefer the average distribution than other age groups.(2)Children will allocate resources based on the proportion of tasks contributed by the two parties in the task,reflecting the cognitive and behavioral characteristics of contribution distribution.(3)In the third-party situation,There is no significant age effect on distribution behavior in the effortless situation,which is expressed as an average distribution;In the laborious situation,as the age increases,the more children are allocated to the children who worked more.(4)Being third party situation and windfall gains can increase children's equitable allocation behavior,while earned rewards through efforts to obtain resources alone will lead to allocation biased towards the one who strives to obtain resources.(5)With the increase of age,children's ability of distribution according tocontribution gradually matures,and the influence of situation involvement on distribution gradually weakens.