Inequity Aversion among Chinese Children Aged From 4 to 8 Years Old

Human beings are inequity aversive. Inequity aversion is often represented as a willingness to give up self-interest to maintain overall fairness. While most of the studies carried out in western cultures have shown that three-year-olds start to present their aversion to unfair outcomes, large remains unknown about children raised under Chinese culture. In this study, ninety 4-, 6-, and 8-year-old Chinese children’s (MeanAge = 4.3, 6.4, 8.6)inequity aversion was investigated with UG paradigm. All the participants were faced with disadvantageous (the child got 1 while the opponent got 3 - 1:3), fair (1:1), and advantageous (3:1) offers, proposed by the opponent (second-party condition) for half of the participants, and a third person (third-party condition) for the other half. Participants can either accept the offer or reject it, which ends in both party receiving nothing. A 3(age-group: 4-,6-, 8-ys)* 3(equality: advantageous vs disadvantageous) * 2(proposer: second-party vs third-party) Repeated ANOVA showed significant main effects of all factors, which were further explained by significant interactions between age-group * equality, equality * proposer, and age-group * proposer (see Fig 1 for the results). Children from all age groups accepted equal offers, but 8-year-olds rejected more unequal offers, whether advantageous or disadvantageous, than 6- or 4-year-olds. Six-year-olds were more likely to reject unequal offers than equal ones, demonstrating some sense of inequity aversion. In addition, 6- and 8- year-olds are more likely to reject unfair offers from 2nd-party than 3nd-party proposers.