Development of in-group favoritism in children's third-party punishment of selfishness
Development of in-group favoritism in children's third-party punishment of selfishness
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.1402280111
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发表时间：
2014-09-02
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Warneken, Felix
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Jordan, Jillian J.;McAuliffe, Katherine;Warneken, Felix
在执行合作行为规范时，成年人有时会表现出群体内偏见。例如，第三方观察者对群体外成员的自私行为的惩罚比群体内成员的类似行为更为严厉。尽管有证据表明儿童在 6 岁左右开始系统地惩罚自私行为，但惩罚中群体内偏见的发展仍然未知。孩子们是一开始就公正地执行公平规范，还是规范执行从一开始就存在偏见？偏见如何随着发展而改变？在这里，我们在实验室中创建了新颖的社交群体，并为 6 岁和 8 岁的孩子提供了对自私分享行为进行代价高昂的第三方惩罚的机会。我们发现，到了 6 岁时，惩罚就已经出现了偏差：当自私的资源分配由外群体成员提出并且使群体内成员处于不利地位时，就会受到更多的惩罚。我们还发现，虽然 6 岁至 8 岁之间代价高昂的惩罚有所增加，但惩罚的偏见部分减少。尽管 8 岁的孩子也更严厉地惩罚自私的外群体成员，但他们同样可能代表弱势群体内和外群体成员进行惩罚，这或许反映了公正执行规范的努力。总而言之，我们的结果表明，规范的执行从一开始就存在偏见，但这种偏见可以通过发展变革部分克服。
When enforcing norms for cooperative behavior, human adults sometimes exhibit in-group bias. For example, third-party observers punish selfish behaviors committed by out-group members more harshly than similar behaviors committed by in-group members. Although evidence suggests that children begin to systematically punish selfish behavior around the age of 6 y, the development of in-group bias in their punishment remains unknown. Do children start off enforcing fairness norms impartially, or is norm enforcement biased from its emergence? How does bias change over development? Here, we created novel social groups in the laboratory and gave 6- and 8-year-olds the opportunity to engage in costly third-party punishment of selfish sharing behavior. We found that by age 6, punishment was already biased: Selfish resource allocations received more punishment when they were proposed by out-group members and when they disadvantaged in-group members. We also found that although costly punishment increased between ages 6 and 8, bias in punishment partially decreased. Although 8-y-olds also punished selfish out-group members more harshly, they were equally likely to punish on behalf of disadvantaged in-group and out-group members, perhaps reflecting efforts to enforce norms impartially. Taken together, our results suggest that norm enforcement is biased from its emergence, but that this bias can be partially overcome through developmental change.