Characteristics And Factors Of Distributive And Retributive Justice In Children

The pursuit of social justice ideally ensures that people receive their fair share of benefits,and that those who commit offenses receive a fair degree of punishment.These two forms of justice are referred to as distributive justice and retributive justice,respectively.Children attend to equality and merit when distributing desirable items,and have a notion that intentional bad behavior should be punished.Although the specific content is different,but argues that both are part of the same practice,the practice of achieving justice.Therefore,the main purpose of this study is to explore the characteristics and factors of distributive and retributive justice in children.In Study 1,we adopted the third party resource allocation paradigm measuring the amount of rewards or punishments that participants allocated to recipients who differed in the amount of good or bad things they had done,in order to explore whether the characteristics of distributive justice and retributive justice is similar and the recipient identity affect both the two kinds of justice in the preferences for equality and equity.In the first experiment,we adopted the mixed experimental design of 3(age group:4-5,6-7,8-10,year-olds)x2(the nature of recipient behavior:Good,Bad)×2(the type of assignment task:Rewarding,Aversive),and explored the distribution characteristics of reward and punishment for 4-10-year-old children under the equally good or bad behavior.The results showed that:①In the Equal Good with Rewarding Jobs trial,96%children distributed the jobs with an even split.In the Equal Bad with Aversive Jobs trial,98%children distributed the jobs with a 2-2 split.And there was no difference in the distribution of children in three age groups.It was suggested that children were inclined to create equal distributions when recipients’ behaviors were depicted as equally good or bad.②In the four Unequal Behavior trials,all children in the four kinds of experimental task distribution score were significantly higher than the average score,it was suggested that children aged 4 to 10 tended to distribute rewards and punishments based on the notion of merit or just deserts.And no difference was found between the four Unequal Behavior trials of 6-10-year-old children,it showed that their equitable preference is stable.Overall,older children have a deeper understanding of the fairness of distributive justice and retributive justice.The research of distributive justice shows that children gave more number of resources to ingroup,so whether there is a phenomenon of ingroup bias in the retributive justice?Therefore,experiment 2 was based on social identity theory to explore whether recipient’s identity affects distributive justice and retributive justice simultaneously.The results showed that:①In the Equal Good with Rewarding Jobs trial,fewer and fewer children allocated resources equally,and younger children are more likely to have a ingroup preference.②In the Unequal Good trial and Unequal Bad with Rewarding trial,the score of children aged 4 to 10 for outgroup was significantly higher than that of ingroup.We can know that it is more likely to appear the phenomenon of ingroup bias within the group advantage and disadvantage.Study 1 from the perspective of the individual explored the development characteristics of distributive justice and retributive justice,study 2 introduced the collective discipline to explore how young children view collective consequences,and know whether there is symmetry in how desert is considered across distributive and retributive justice.Therefore,the first-party and the third-party paradigm were used to explore the fair judgment of children on collective consequences and targeted discipline.The results showed that:①the score of children in the Collective Reward scenario were higher than that of Collective Punishment;the score of children in the Targeted Punishment scenario were higher than that of Collective Punishment,and the score of 6-7-year-old Children in the Targeted Reward scenario than Collective Reward.It shows that children generally considered punishment based on the notion of just deserts,and Targeted Punishment was better than Collective Punishment.It showed that the notion of desert had a greater proportion in retributive justice.②Children aged 4-5 scored higher on Targeted Reward.Collective Reward and Collective Punishment,it was suggested that younger children were more likely to accept teacher’s behavior.According to the data of those experiments above,it was concluded that:①Distributive justice for children is similar to that of retributive.In the Equal Behavior trials,children tend to distribute rewards and punishments equally.In the Unequal Behavior trials,children tend to distribute rewards and punishments based on the merit or notion of just deserts.②Distributive justice and retributive justice are affected by the identity of the recipient,and younger children are more likely to have a ingroup preference.③Children generally believe that Targeted Punishment is more fair than Collective Punishment,and Collective Reward are more fair than Collective Punishment.