Will children give up their own rewards to punish unfair sharing between other children?

Details

Researchers presented children with equal or extremely unequal distributions between two absent peers. Children could punish the distribution either for free or by sacrificing their own rewards. This tested how they responded to unfair sharing when they were not the recipients.

Across the communities studied in Canada, India, Peru, Uganda, the USA, and Vanuatu, children were more likely to punish selfish sharing than equal sharing. Older children were more likely than younger children to punish selfish sharing in Canada, India, Peru, and the USA; the abstract does not report that pattern for Uganda or Vanuatu.

Cost did not have the same relationship with punishment everywhere. In Canada and the USA, children punished more overall when punishment was free. In Uganda, children punished selfish sharing more when doing so cost them rewards. The finding therefore is not that children everywhere respond identically, but that punishment of unfair sharing appeared across these settings, sometimes at a personal cost. This experiment does not establish the age when this behavior first emerges or show that these communities represent all children in their countries.