A developmental examination of inequity aversion in 4-year-olds

Sanchez Hernandez, Fernando

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/117848 Copy

Description

Title

A developmental examination of inequity aversion in 4-year-olds

Author(s)

Sanchez Hernandez, Fernando

Issue Date

2022-12-09

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Hyde, Daniel

Department of Study

Psychology

Discipline

Psychology

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

M.S.

Degree Level

Thesis

Keyword(s)

• Inequity aversion
• fairness
• cognitive development

Abstract

Prior work has shown that by 4 years of age, children tested with economic games tend to reject offered numerical distributions that are less than those offered to a social partner. In one such game, the Inequity Game, children are asked to make decisions as to whether to accept or reject distributions proposed to them and their social partner. However, researchers usually present children with only one type of disadvantageous, equal, and/or advantageous distribution, making it unclear whether children would respond similarly if offers and response contingencies varied. To begin to examine the role of varying distributions in a simplified version of the Inequity Game, we presented children with two numerical forms of disadvantageous (0-3; 1-3), equal (1-1; 3-3), and advantageous (3-0; 3-1) distributions while measuring their rejection rates and the time it took for them to respond to each distribution. Validating our simplified procedure, we found that 4-year-olds (N=20) generally took longer to respond to and ultimately reject disadvantageous offers when compared to equal or advantageous offers, though this pattern was stronger for 0-3 than for 1-3 disadvantageous offers. These results contribute to the growing literature on the development of behavioral fairness by showing that while disadvantageous inequity aversion emerges early in development, some numerical distributions elicit stronger evidence for it than others, raising interesting questions for future research about the nature of this aversion and the factors that contribute to it.

Graduation Semester

2022-12

Type of Resource

Thesis

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2022 Fernando Sanchez Hernandez

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