Do Infants Have a Sense of Fairness?

• Published in: Psychological science Vol. 23; no. 2; pp. 196 - 204
• Main Authors: Sloane, Stephanie, Baillargeon, Renée, Premack, David
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01-02-2012; Sage Publications; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Babies; Behavioural psychology; Beliefs; Biological and medical sciences; Child Development; Child psychology; Children; Cognition & reasoning; Developmental psychology; Equity; Expectation; Expectations; Experimentation; Fairness; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Inanimate Objects; Infant; Infants; Justice; Male; Morality; Morals; Newborn. Infant; Preschool children; Psychological effects; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Social attribution, perception and cognition; Social cognition; Social interaction; Social psychology; Toy boxes; Toys; social cognition; morality; infant development; Human; Moral attitude; Equity; Infant; Moral development; Experimental study; Moral science; Social cognition
• ISSN: 0956-7976; 1467-9280
• DOI: 10.1177/0956797611422072

Two experiments examined infants' expectations about how an experimenter should distribute resources and rewards to other individuals. In Experiment 1, 19-month-olds expected an experimenter to divide two items equally, as opposed to unequally, between two individuals. The infants held no particular expectation when the individuals were replaced with inanimate objects, or when the experimenter simply removed covers in front of the individuals to reveal the items (instead of distributing them). In Experiment 2, 21-month-olds expected an experimenter to give a reward to each of two individuals when both had worked to complete an assigned chore, but not when one of the individuals had done all the work while the other played. The infants held this expectation only when the experimenter could determine through visual inspection who had worked and who had not. Together, these results provide converging evidence that infants in the 2nd year of life already possess context-sensitive expectations relevant to fairness.