"I pick you": the impact of fairness and race on infants' selection of social partners

Abstract

By 15 months of age infants are sensitive to violations of fairness norms as assessed via their enhanced visual attention to unfair versus fair outcomes in violation-of-expectation paradigms. The current study investigated whether 15-month-old infants select social partners on the basis of prior fair versus unfair behavior, and whether infants integrate social selections on the basis of fairness with the race of the distributors and recipients involved in the exchange. Experiment 1 demonstrated that after witnessing one adult distribute toys to two recipients fairly (2:2 distribution), and another adult distribute toys to two recipients unfairly (1:3 distribution), Caucasian infants selected fair over unfair distributors when both distributors were Caucasian; however, this preference was not present when the fair actor was Asian and the unfair actor was Caucasian. In Experiment 2, when fairness, the race of the distributor, and the race of the recipients were fully crossed, Caucasian infants' social selections varied as a function of the race of the recipient advantaged by the unfair distributor. Specifically, infants were more likely to select the fair distributor when the unfair recipient advantaged the Asian (versus the Caucasian) recipient. These findings provide evidence that infants select social partners on the basis of prior fair behavior and that infants also take into account the race of distributors and recipients when making their social selections.

Keywords: fairness; race; resource distribution; social partners; social selections.

FIGURE 1

Fair distribution episode (see left column) and unfair distribution episode (see right column). (A) The distributor lifted up a transparent bin containing four toys and said “Wow!” (B) Both recipients simultaneously said “Please” and pushed the two containers toward the distributor. (C) The distributor pretended to distribute toys into the container on her left side (pictured), and then the container on her right side (not pictured). (D) The distributor held up the empty transparent bin and said “All gone!” (E) The distributor gave one container to each recipient saying “here.” (F) The distributor looked down with her eyes closed, and the recipients simultaneously lifted the lids to reveal the number of toys they received.

FIGURE 2

Average fair choice scores in the CF/CUF and AF/CUF conditions. *p < 0.05.

FIGURE 3

Average fair choice scores in Experiment 2 as a function of the race of the recipient advantaged by the unfair actor. *p < 0.05.