The Fair Maintenance Behavior Of Elementary School Students From The Perspective Of Social Norms

The Third-party punishment occurs when the perpetrator of a transgression is punished by a third-party observer who is not the victim of the transgression and,therefore,not directly affected by it.And quite a number of studies provedthat altruistic punishment plays an important role in maintaining social norms and socialization.When enforcing norms for fair behavior,human adults sometimes exhibit in-group bias.For example,third-party observers punish selfish behaviors committed by out-group members more harshly than similar behaviors committed by in-group members.Although evidence suggests that children begin to systematically punish selfish behavior around 6 years old,the development of in-group bias in their punishment remains unknown.Do children start off enforcing fairness norms impartially? Does norm enforcement biased from its emergence or bias can be partially overcome through developmental change? How does bias change over development? Third-party punishers that punish violators are often perceived as having certain good qualities,which can help punishers build a good reputation.It remains to be a question whether third-party punishment can also be interpreted as a positive signal to children that the third-party punisher can be seen a man of high morality.For this purpose,this study includes the following three experimental researches:In Study 1,we conducted third-party punish experiment based on dictator game and adopted two factors mixed experimental design to examine the impact of grade and degree of unfairness on third-party punishment behavior.Study 2 also conducted third-party punish experiment based on dictator game and adopted two factors mixed experimental design to examine the impact of three factors(grade,group identity of actor and group identity of recipient)on third-party punishment behavior.To explore whether primary school students have group bias and the development characteristics of group bias.In order to further prove the connection between the third-party punishment and the reputation of primary school students,experiment 3 adopted a vignette experiment designed among the subjects of single factor(punishment group vs ignored group vs control group)to further explore the influence of third-party punishment on moral judgment.In Study 3,we conducted vignette experiment based on third-party punishment dictator game and adopted a single factor between-subject design to examine the impact of third-party's decision-making(punish or not)on impartial observer's moral judgement.The results showed that :(1)Five grades of primary school students will perform third-party punishment behavior,but there is no significant difference between the third-party punishment in grade one,grade three and grade four.There is no significant difference between the third-party punishment in grade two and grade five.The punishment intensity in grade two and grade five is significantly higher than students in grade one,grade three and grade four.At the same time,the degree of unfairness will affect the degree of third-party punishment.(2)When first-grade students make third-party punishment,there is already the actor group bias and the recipient group bias.When primary school students are in the face of out-group actors,they will make more severe third-party than the in-group actors.When primary school students are in the face of in-group recipients,they will make more severe third-party than the out-group recipients.The third-party punishment increased with the growth of grade,and the third-party punishment in grade 5 was the most severe,and the actor bias reached the maximum in grade 5,while the group bias of the recipient did not change significantly.(3)The results showed that third-party punisher was judged as more moral than non-punisher and counterpart in the control condition,third-party non-punisher was judged as more immoral than punisher and counterpart in the control condition.To summarize,the conclusions are as following: First-grade students have already shown third-party punishment behavior and generated in-group bias;The actor's in-group bias increased with age,but the recipient's in-group bias did not change.Due to the complexity of primary school students' psychological process,the third-party punishment fluctuates repeatedly,reaching its maximum in the fifth grade.The third-party punishment is the moral behavior,affecting the moral judgment.