No one is going to recess: How children evaluate collective and targeted punishment

Abstract

This study examined children's responses to targeted and collective punishment. Thirty-six 4-5-year-olds and 36 6-7-year-olds (36 females; 54 White; data collected 2018-2019 in the United States) experienced three classroom punishment situations: Targeted (only transgressing student punished), Collective (one student transgressed, all students punished), and Baseline (all students transgressed, all punished). The older children evaluated collective punishment as less fair than targeted, whereas younger children evaluated both similarly. Across ages, children distributed fewer resources to teachers who administered collective than targeted punishment, and rated transgressors more negatively and distributed fewer resources to transgressors in Collective and Targeted than Baseline. These findings demonstrate children's increasing understanding of punishment and point to the potential impact of different forms of punishment on children's social lives.

Keywords: children; collective punishment; development; fairness; targeted punishment.

FIGURE 1

Example of the experimental setup for each of the punishment types. Note: The participant is represented by a self-portrait, the transgressor(s) are identified by the presence of the crayon and scribbles, and the stars are the “prize” stickers given out in the scenario. The images used in the present study were taken from standardized datasets (Ebner et al., 2010; LoBue & Thrasher, 2014). However, for copyright reasons, the images shown here are AI-generated photos simulated using https://generated.photos/faces/child.

FIGURE 2

Mean fairness ratings in each condition, by age. Note: Error bars represent the 95% confidence interval and individual data points are indicated with diamond shapes. Symbols: ***p < .001.

FIGURE 3

Mean ratings of liking the transgressor and average number of flowers shared with the transgressor in each condition. Note: Error bars represent the 95% confidence interval and individual data points are indicated with diamond shapes. Symbols: ***p < .001.

FIGURE 4

Mean number of flowers shared with the teacher in each condition. Note: Error bars represent the 95% confidence interval and individual data points are indicated with diamond shapes. *p < .05, **p < .01.