The Development Of Preschool Children’s Inequity Aversion

Inequity aversion is a social preference that can be widely observed in human society.Children’s research can minimize the potential impact of other factors such as education,society,and religion on the development of inequity aversion.Foreign research has focused on the development trajectory of inequity aversion in children,and paid less attention to the cognitive mechanism of inequity aversion and the combined effect of internal and external factors.Therefore,this research focuses on the development and mechanism of inequity aversion in preschool children.Experiment 1explores the potential development of advantageous inequity aversion between the ages of 4 and 6 and the role of theory of mind and work style in it.Experiment 2 examines the development of disadvantageous inequity aversion in children aged 5 to 6 years,and tries to analyze the influence of theory of mind and work style on it.The results of experiment 1 show that(1)there is no significant difference in the development of advantageous inequity aversion among children in the 4-year-old group,5-year-old group,and 6-year-old group.Advantageous inequity aversion is still in the developmental latency period between 4 and 6 years old.(2)Compared with parallel work,children have a significantly higher incidence of advantageous inequity aversion after cooperative work.The hierarchical chi-square test found that the working style of children in the 4-year-old group and the 5-year-old group had a significant marginal influence on the advantageous inequity aversion;the working style of the children in the 6-year-old group had a significant influence on the advantageous inequity aversion.(3)There is a positive correlation between the total score of theory of mind and children’s advantageous inequity aversion.(4)Further analysis found that the first-level theory of mind score is not correlated with children’s advantageous inequity aversion,and the second-level theory of mind score is positively correlated with children’s advantageous inequity aversion.The second-level theory of mind can positively predict the development of children’s advantageous inequity aversion.(5)The second-level theory of mind is a completely mediating variable that ages children’s advantageous inequity aversion,and the second half of the mediation path is regulated by the way of working.Compared with parallel work,children with high second-level theory of mind are more likely to show advantageous inequity aversion after cooperative work.The results of experiment 2 show that(1)there is no significant difference in the development of disadvantageous inequity aversion among the 4-year-old group and the5-year-old group,and the disadvantageous inequity aversion is in a stable development stage.(2)There is no significant difference in the development of children’s disadvantageous inequity aversion under different working style scenarios.(3)The total score of theory of mind,the score of first-level theory of mind,and the score of secondlevel theory of mind are not related to children’s disadvantageous inequity aversion.The whole study shows that there are different development trajectories and mechanisms of advantageous and disadvantageous inequity aversion.There is no significant change in advantageous inequity aversion between 4 and 6 years old,but it is affected by a potential development path: in the situation of peer cooperation,the higher the children’s own secondary theory of mind,the more likely they are to show advantageous inequity aversion.Disadvantageous inequity aversion has been widely developed at the age of 4-5,which is not affected by individual theory of mind and joint efforts.It is a kind of fairness characteristic without social cognition and stable development.According to the research results,this study puts forward relevant education suggestions for teachers:(1)The attention to fairness should be shifted from children’s moral education to daily life.(2)We should support children’s cooperative activities and attach importance to the role of cooperation in the cultivation of fairness.(3)Attach importance to the role of theory of mind in the cultivation of fairness...