Toddlers Selectively Help Fair Agents

Abstract

Previous research showed that infants and toddlers are inclined to help prosocial agents and assign a positive valence to fair distributions. Also, they expect that positive and negative actions directed toward distributors will conform to reciprocity principles. This study investigates whether toddlers are selective in helping others, as a function of others' previous distributive actions. Toddlers were presented with real-life events in which two actresses distributed resources either equally or unequally between two puppets. Then, they played together with a ball that accidentally fell to the ground and asked participants to help them to retrieve it. Participants preferred to help the actress who performed equal distributions. This finding suggests that by the second year children's prosocial actions are modulated by their emerging sense of fairness.

Highlights: Toddlers (mean age = 25 months) are selective in helping distributors. Toddlers prefer helping a fair rather than an unfair distributor. Toddlers' selective helping provides evidence for an early sense of fairness.

Keywords: distributive justice; fairness; infant; reciprocity; selective helping; social cognition.

FIGURE 1

Illustrations of the distribution and test phases in the selective helping task. During the distribution phase (A), the two actresses distributed biscuits and candies. One of them performed two equal distributions toward her two puppets while the other one performed two unequal distributions by giving everything to one of her two puppets. During the test phase (B), the actresses first played with a ball and then asked toddlers to help them to retrieve the out of reach ball.