Children's social competence, academic competence, and aggressiveness as related to ability to make judgments of fairness

Abstract

The relationship of 102 fifth and sixth graders' judgments of fairness with their academic and social competence and aggressiveness was studied. Children were given self-report and peer-nomination inventories measuring academic competence, social competence, and aggressiveness at a single point in time at the public school they attended. These measures were related to children's prediction of fairness on a distributive justice measure. Children who saw themselves as academically and socially competent scored higher on the distributive justice measure. Children whose peers saw them as less academically competent and more aggressive scored lower on the distributive justice measure. Analyses showed an association between children's academic competence, social competence, and aggressiveness scores and their scores on judgments of fairness.