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The ontogeny of fairness in seven societies
Abstract
A sense of fairness plays a critical role in supporting human cooperation. Adult norms of fair resource sharing vary widely across societies, suggesting that culture shapes the acquisition of fairness behaviour during childhood. Here we examine how fairness behaviour develops in children from seven diverse societies, testing children from 4 to 15 years of age (n = 866 pairs) in a standardized resource decision task. We measured two key aspects of fairness decisions: disadvantageous inequity aversion (peer receives more than self) and advantageous inequity aversion (self receives more than a peer). We show that disadvantageous inequity aversion emerged across all populations by middle childhood. By contrast, advantageous inequity aversion was more variable, emerging in three populations and only later in development. We discuss these findings in relation to questions about the universality and cultural specificity of human fairness.
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“For instance, [40] compared the acquisition of fairness behaviour in seven different societies: Canada, India, Mexico, Peru, Senegal, Uganda, and the USA, and found that while children from all cultures developed aversion towards disadvantageous inequity (avoid receiving less than a peer), advantageous inequity aversion (avoid receiving more than a peer) was more prevalent in the West.”
From Re-imagining Algorithmic Fairness in India and Beyond (2021) · cites this paper as [40]
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“Tellingly, other work suggests that the more sophisticated strategies for positive reciprocity dreamt up by theorists to contend with more complex social environments do not even begin to show themselves until after age 10, at least in WEIRD children (Blake et al. 2015b).”
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McAuliffe, K., Blake, P. R., Steinbeis, N., & Warneken, F. (2017) · Nature Human Behaviour · doi:10.1038/s41562-016-0042 · Cited by 341
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Metadata
- Authors
- Blake, P. R., McAuliffe, K., Corbit, J., Callaghan, T. C., Barry, O., Bowie, A., Kleutsch, L., Kramer, K. L., Ross, E., Vongsachang, H., Wrangham, R., & Warneken, F.
- Affiliations
- Boston University (US)
- Boston College (US)
- Simon Fraser University (CA)
- St. Francis Xavier University (CA)
- Cheikh Anta Diop University (SN)
- Harvard University (US)
- University of Utah (US)
- Corresponding author
- Blake, P. R.
- McAuliffe, K.
- ORCID
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2015-11-18
- Volume
- 528
- Issue
- 7581
- Pages
- 258-261
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- OpenAlex
- W2177707862
- Cited by
- 534
- References
- 33
- Citations by year
- 2026: 40 · 2025: 51 · 2024: 92 · 2023: 59 · 2022: 62 · 2021: 54 · 2020: 38 · 2019: 38 · 2018: 32 · 2017: 38 · 2016: 28 · 2015: 2
- FWCI
- 96.55
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Cultural Differences and Values
- Keywords
- fairness, ontogeny, children, cultural variation, resource sharing, cooperation, developmental timing, cross-cultural comparison
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Age Factors, Child, Child, Preschool, Cooperative Behavior, Culture, Decision Making, Female, Humans, Male, Social Behavior, Social Change
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