A Study On The Influencing Factors Of The Fairness Of Resource Allocation For Preschool Children

Distributive justice concerns how individuals or societies allocate resources or tasks in an equitable manner.When children suffer from an unfair distribution,they would display negative emotions and even become jealous.So when children play the role of the allocator,will they allocate resources fairly? Which factors would affect their allocation? The situation of resource allocation is often complex in daily life,and a variety of factors tend to be considered by children in distributing.It has been demonstrated that the relationship with recipients plays an important role in allocation,and children of different ages show their preference for recipients who have higher similarity or closer relationship with them.However,few studies have explored whether the influence of relational closeness on children's distribution will remain the original pattern under the impact of other factors.Considering that distributive justice principles often involves quality justice and numerical justice,this study recruited preschoolers aged 4-6 years as participants,and used the situational experiment method to investigate the effects of relational closeness,resource quality as well as odd-even numbers of resources on their distributive justice in different involvement contexts.Two empirical study were designed to understand above questions.Study 1 aimed to investigate the effects of relational closeness and resource quality on distributive justice of preschoolers.In study 1a,125 preschoolers were asked to allocate erasers of different quality between two strangers(or between their best friend and a stranger)to explore how relational closeness and resource quality impact their distributive justice in the non-self-involved context;study 1b asked 118 preschoolers to allocate erasers of different quality between themselves and a stranger(or between themselves and their best friend)to investigate the influences of relational closeness and resource quality on their distributive justice in the self-involvement context.Based on study 1,study 2 randomly divided preschoolers into two groups according to whether the number of resources can be divided equally to explore how relational closeness and odd-even numbers of resources impact their distributive justice.In study 2a,131 preschoolers were asked to allocate erasers of equal quality between two strangers(or between their best friend and a stranger)to investigate the effects of relational closeness and odd-even numbers of resources on their distributive justice in the non-self-involved context;study 2b asked 123 preschoolers to allocate erasers of equal quality between themselves and a stranger(or between themselves and their best friend)to examine the influences of relational closeness and odd-even numbers of resources on their distributive justice in the self-involvement context.Results demonstrated that:(1)When examining the effects of relational closeness and resource quality on distributive justice of preschoolers,only relational closeness significantly impacted their distributive justice in two different involvement contexts.Specifically,regardless of resource quality,preschoolers tend to allocate more resources to their best friend than a stranger in the non-self-involved context.In the self-involvement context,they distributed resources fairly between themselves and their best friend.In contrast,they tend to allocate more resources to themselves than a stranger.(2)In the non-self-involved context,when examining the effects of relational closeness and odd-even numbers of resources on distributive justice of preschoolers,odd-even numbers of resources influenced their distributive justice under higher relational closeness condition.Specifically,compared with the situation where resources can be divided equally,preschoolers showed higher level of unfairness in allocating resources that cannot be divided equally between their best friend and a stranger,and they tend to allocate more resources to their best friend.(3)In the self-involved context,when examining the effects of relational closeness and odd-even numbers of resources on distributive justice of preschoolers,odd-even numbers of resources influenced their distributive justice under lower relational closeness condition.Specifically,preschoolers distributed resources fairly between themselves and a stranger when the number of resources can be divided equally,while they tend to allocate more resources to themselves when the number of resources cannot be divided equally.In sum,when the relationship with recipients and the characteristics of the resources were examined together in the distributive contexts,the interaction between relational closeness and odd-even numbers of resources could affect preschoolers' distribution.The findings can help educators(especially preschool teachers)to apperceive the factors that influence preschoolers' distributive justice,and further guide preschoolers to learn how to distribute resources fairly and cultivate their awareness of fairness.At the same time,early childhood is the key period of cultivating positive morality,and distributive justice is an important moral norm.Therefore,educators should help preschoolers cultivate fair norms and promote the positive development of their morality in the critical period.