CAREER: The development of, and reasoning about, inequality and its rectification

这个项目调查了我们对公平和不平等的理解的起源。该项目的第一部分调查我们的认知技能如何塑造我们对公平的理解；第二个目标则是关注儿童关注的不平等的具体特征。最后，最后一个目的是调查社会因素，如系统劣势的经历，如何塑造我们对不平等的推理的发展。这项研究将有助于确定儿童——以及成年人——在思考和积极纠正不平等时面临的具体障碍。更广泛的影响包括向当地社区和关注贫困和教育的学者传播作品；对来自传统上代表性不足的群体的一组研究人员进行研究、技术技能和社区外展方面的交叉培训；并与当地社区合作开展这项工作。我们社会中最普遍的问题之一是资源分配不平等的长期存在。虽然人们认识到不平等的有害影响，但他们面临着一系列偏见，这些偏见决定了不平等的延续，而不是纠正。通过一系列实验发展研究，本提案的研究重点是通过调查a)我们对不平等的理解在幼儿时期是如何发展的，b)塑造我们对早期不平等理解的认知机制，以及c)我们的社会经验和社会背景如何有助于我们认识（不）公平的能力，来研究为什么人们在纠正不平等方面存在困难。这项工作的结果将阐明我们思考资源分配不公平的能力的起源、发展轨迹和认知基础。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project investigates the origins of our understanding of fairness and inequality. The first part of the project investigates how our cognitive skills shape our understanding of equity; the second aim then focuses on the specific features of inequality that young children attend to. Finally, the last aim investigates how social factors, such as experiences with systemic disadvantage, shape the development of our reasoning about inequality. This research will help pinpoint the specific stumbling blocks that children – and by extension, adults – face when reasoning about and actively rectifying inequality. Broader impacts include dissemination of the work to the local community and to scholars focused on poverty and education; cross-training a group of researchers from traditionally under-represented groups in research, technical skills, and community outreach; and collaborations with local communities to conduct this work. One of the most pervasive problems of our society is the perpetuation of unequal distribution of resources. While people recognize the pernicious effects of inequality, they face a series of biases that dictate its perpetuation, rather than its rectification. Through a series of experimental developmental studies, the research in this proposal focuses on why people have trouble rectifying inequality by investigating a) how our understanding of inequality develops in early childhood, b) the cognitive mechanisms that shape our understanding of early inequality, and c) how our social experiences and social contexts contribute to our abilities to recognize (un)fairness. The results of this work will shed light on the origins, developmental trajectories, and cognitive underpinnings of our abilities to think about inequitable resource distribution.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.