IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jecsur/v37y2023i5p1715-1742.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Fairness and inequality acceptance in children and adolescents: A survey on behaviors in economic experiments

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel Schunk
  • Isabell Zipperle

Abstract

This survey article provides an overview of the recent experimental economic literature on fairness‐related behaviors in children and adolescents. We discuss different motives underlying fair behavior, summarize the development of fairness and inequality acceptance across different developmental stages, and we shed light on behavioral heterogeneity with respect to gender, SES, and cultural background. Moreover, we also discuss the role of preferences and social norms as determinants of fair behavior in children and adolescents. To learn about the origins of fair behavior, we address the influence of social environments, such as the family and we discuss the potential contribution of the genetic disposition.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Schunk & Isabell Zipperle, 2023. "Fairness and inequality acceptance in children and adolescents: A survey on behaviors in economic experiments," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(5), pages 1715-1742, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jecsur:v:37:y:2023:i:5:p:1715-1742
    DOI: 10.1111/joes.12553
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/joes.12553
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/joes.12553?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ernst Fehr & Simon Gächter, 2000. "Fairness and Retaliation: The Economics of Reciprocity," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 159-181, Summer.
    2. Dirk Engelmann & Martin Strobel, 2004. "Inequality Aversion, Efficiency, and Maximin Preferences in Simple Distribution Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 857-869, September.
    3. Gary Charness & Matthew Rabin, 2002. "Understanding Social Preferences with Simple Tests," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(3), pages 817-869.
    4. John A. List & Ragan Petrie & Anya Samek, 2023. "How Experiments with Children Inform Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 61(2), pages 504-564, June.
    5. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    6. Joseph Henrich, 2001. "In Search of Homo Economicus: Behavioral Experiments in 15 Small-Scale Societies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 73-78, May.
    7. Janet Currie, 2001. "Early Childhood Education Programs," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 213-238, Spring.
    8. Christoph Engel, 2011. "Dictator games: a meta study," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 14(4), pages 583-610, November.
    9. Harbaugh, William T & Krause, Kate, 2000. "Children's Altruism in Public Good and Dictator Experiments," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 38(1), pages 95-109, January.
    10. Ingvild Almås & Alexander W Cappelen & Kjell G Salvanes & Erik Ø Sørensen & Bertil Tungodden, 2017. "Fairness and family background," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 16(2), pages 117-131, May.
    11. Falk, Armin & Fehr, Ernst & Fischbacher, Urs, 2008. "Testing theories of fairness--Intentions matter," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 287-303, January.
    12. Adrian Bruhin & Ernst Fehr & Daniel Schunk, 2019. "Correction to: The Many Faces of Human Sociality: Uncovering the Distribution and Stability of Social Preferences," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(4), pages 1335-1335.
    13. Brocas, Isabelle & Carrillo, Juan D., 2020. "Introduction to special issue “Understanding Cognition and Decision Making by Children.” Studying decision-making in children: Challenges and opportunities," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 777-783.
    14. Fabian Kosse & Thomas Deckers & Pia Pinger & Hannah Schildberg-Hörisch & Armin Falk, 2020. "The Formation of Prosociality: Causal Evidence on the Role of Social Environment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(2), pages 434-467.
    15. Erik O. Kimbrough & Alexander Vostroknutov, 2016. "Norms Make Preferences Social," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 608-638, June.
    16. Adrian Bruhin & Ernst Fehr & Daniel Schunk, 2019. "The many Faces of Human Sociality: Uncovering the Distribution and Stability of Social Preferences," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(4), pages 1025-1069.
    17. Ernst Fehr & Ivo Schurtenberger, 2018. "Normative foundations of human cooperation," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 2(7), pages 458-468, July.
    18. Flavio Cunha & James J. Heckman & Susanne M. Schennach, 2010. "Estimating the Technology of Cognitive and Noncognitive Skill Formation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(3), pages 883-931, May.
    19. John A. List, 2007. "On the Interpretation of Giving in Dictator Games," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(3), pages 482-493.
    20. Valeria Maggian & Marie Claire Villeval, 2016. "Social preferences and lying aversion in children," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(3), pages 663-685, September.
    21. Matthias Doepke & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 2017. "Parenting With Style: Altruism and Paternalism in Intergenerational Preference Transmission," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 85, pages 1331-1371, September.
    22. James Heckman & Flavio Cunha, 2007. "The Technology of Skill Formation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(2), pages 31-47, May.
    23. Martinsson, Peter & Nordblom, Katarina & Rützler, Daniela & Sutter, Matthias, 2011. "Social preferences during childhood and the role of gender and age -- An experiment in Austria and Sweden," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 110(3), pages 248-251, March.
    24. David K. Levine, 1998. "Modeling Altruism and Spitefulness in Experiment," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 1(3), pages 593-622, July.
    25. Kahneman, Daniel & Knetsch, Jack L & Thaler, Richard H, 1986. "Fairness and the Assumptions of Economics," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(4), pages 285-300, October.
    26. List, John A. & Samak, Anya C., 2013. "Exploring the origins of charitable acts: Evidence from an artefactual field experiment with young children," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 118(3), pages 431-434.
    27. Armin Falk & Fabian Kosse & Pia Pinger & Hannah Schildberg-Hörisch & Thomas Deckers, 2021. "Socioeconomic Status and Inequalities in Children’s IQ and Economic Preferences," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 129(9), pages 2504-2545.
    28. Sutter, Matthias & Zoller, Claudia & Glätzle-Rützler, Daniela, 2019. "Economic behavior of children and adolescents – A first survey of experimental economics results," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 98-121.
    29. Katherine McAuliffe & Peter R. Blake & Nikolaus Steinbeis & Felix Warneken, 2017. "The developmental foundations of human fairness," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 1(2), pages 1-9, February.
    30. Cappelen, Alexander W. & Sørensen, Erik Ø. & Tungodden, Bertil, 2010. "Responsibility for what? Fairness and individual responsibility," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 429-441, April.
    31. Bindra, Parampreet Christopher & Glatzle-Rutzler, Daniela & Lergetporer, Philipp, 2020. "Discrimination at young age: Experimental evidence from preschool children," Munich Reprints in Economics 84742, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    32. Houser, Daniel & Schunk, Daniel, 2009. "Social environments with competitive pressure: Gender effects in the decisions of German schoolchildren," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 634-641, August.
    33. Schunk, Daniel & Wagner, Valentin, 2021. "What determines the willingness to sanction violations of newly introduced social norms: Personality traits or economic preferences? evidence from the COVID-19 crisis," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    34. Hermes, Henning & Hett, Florian & Mechtel, Mario & Schmidt, Felix & Schunk, Daniel & Wagner, Valentin, 2020. "Do children cooperate conditionally? Adapting the strategy method for first-graders," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 638-652.
    35. Alexander W. Cappelen & Astri Drange Hole & Erik Ø Sørensen & Bertil Tungodden, 2007. "The Pluralism of Fairness Ideals: An Experimental Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 818-827, June.
    36. Patricia Kanngiesser & Felix Warneken, 2012. "Young Children Consider Merit when Sharing Resources with Others," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(8), pages 1-5, August.
    37. James Andreoni & Lise Vesterlund, 2001. "Which is the Fair Sex? Gender Differences in Altruism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(1), pages 293-312.
    38. Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher, 2004. "Social norms and human cooperation," Macroeconomics 0409026, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    39. Bašić, Zvonimir & Falk, Armin & Kosse, Fabian, 2020. "The development of egalitarian norm enforcement in childhood and adolescence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 667-680.
    40. Angerer, Silvia & Dutcher, E. Glenn & Glätzle-Rützler, Daniela & Lergetporer, Philipp & Sutter, Matthias, 2017. "Gender differences in discrimination emerge early in life: Evidence from primary school children in a bilingual city," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 15-18.
    41. Sutter, Matthias, 2007. "Outcomes versus intentions: On the nature of fair behavior and its development with age," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 69-78, January.
    42. Murnighan, J. Keith & Saxon, Michael Scott, 1998. "Ultimatum bargaining by children and adults," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 415-445, August.
    43. Dufwenberg, Martin & Kirchsteiger, Georg, 2004. "A theory of sequential reciprocity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 268-298, May.
    44. Tim Friehe & Hannah Schildberg-Hörisch, 2018. "Predicting norm enforcement: the individual and joint predictive power of economic preferences, personality, and self-control," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 127-146, February.
    45. David Cesarini & Christopher T. Dawes & Magnus Johannesson & Paul Lichtenstein & Björn Wallace, 2009. "Genetic Variation in Preferences for Giving and Risk Taking," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(2), pages 809-842.
    46. Brocas, Isabelle & Carrillo, Juan & Kodaverdian, Niree, 2017. "Altruism and strategic giving in children and adolescents," CEPR Discussion Papers 12288, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    47. Erin L. Krupka & Roberto A. Weber, 2013. "Identifying Social Norms Using Coordination Games: Why Does Dictator Game Sharing Vary?," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 495-524, June.
    48. Fehr, Ernst & Glätzle-Rützler, Daniela & Sutter, Matthias, 2013. "The development of egalitarianism, altruism, spite and parochialism in childhood and adolescence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 369-383.
    49. Kamas, Linda & Preston, Anne, 2015. "Can social preferences explain gender differences in economic behavior?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 525-539.
    50. Breitkopf, Laura & Chowdhury, Shyamal K. & Priyam, Shambhavi & Schildberg-Hörisch, Hannah & Sutter, Matthias, 2020. "Do economic preferences of children predict behavior?," DICE Discussion Papers 342, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    51. Armin Falk & Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher, 2003. "On the Nature of Fair Behavior," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 41(1), pages 20-26, January.
    52. Shyamal Chowdhury & Matthias Sutter & Klaus F. Zimmermann, 2022. "Economic Preferences across Generations and Family Clusters: A Large-Scale Experiment in a Developing Country," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 130(9), pages 2361-2410.
    53. Axel Ockenfels & Gary E. Bolton, 2000. "ERC: A Theory of Equity, Reciprocity, and Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 166-193, March.
    54. Helen Bernhard & Urs Fischbacher & Ernst Fehr, 2006. "Parochial altruism in humans," Nature, Nature, vol. 442(7105), pages 912-915, August.
    55. Rabin, Matthew, 1993. "Incorporating Fairness into Game Theory and Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1281-1302, December.
    56. Forsythe Robert & Horowitz Joel L. & Savin N. E. & Sefton Martin, 1994. "Fairness in Simple Bargaining Experiments," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 347-369, May.
    57. Steven D. Levitt & John A. List, 2007. "What Do Laboratory Experiments Measuring Social Preferences Reveal About the Real World?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 153-174, Spring.
    58. Craig E Smith & Peter R Blake & Paul L Harris, 2013. "I Should but I Won’t: Why Young Children Endorse Norms of Fair Sharing but Do Not Follow Them," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(3), pages 1-11, March.
    59. Kogut, Tehila, 2012. "Knowing what I should, doing what I want: From selfishness to inequity aversion in young children’s sharing behavior," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 226-236.
    60. Guth, Werner & Schmittberger, Rolf & Schwarze, Bernd, 1982. "An experimental analysis of ultimatum bargaining," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 367-388, December.
    61. Cobo–Reyes, Ramon & Dominguez, Jose J. & García–Quero, Fernando & Grosskopf, Brit & Lacomba, Juan A. & Lagos, Francisco & Liu, Tracy Xiao & Pearce, Graeme, 2020. "The development of social preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 653-666.
    62. Colin F. Camerer & Richard H. Thaler, 1995. "Anomalies: Ultimatums, Dictators and Manners," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 209-219, Spring.
    63. Ernst Fehr & Helen Bernhard & Bettina Rockenbach, 2008. "Egalitarianism in young children," Nature, Nature, vol. 454(7208), pages 1079-1083, August.
    64. Rachel Croson & Uri Gneezy, 2009. "Gender Differences in Preferences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 448-474, June.
    65. P. R. Blake & K. McAuliffe & J. Corbit & T. C. Callaghan & O. Barry & A. Bowie & L. Kleutsch & K. L. Kramer & E. Ross & H. Vongsachang & R. Wrangham & F. Warneken, 2015. "The ontogeny of fairness in seven societies," Nature, Nature, vol. 528(7581), pages 258-261, December.
    66. Choshen-Hillel, Shoham & Lin, Zhenni & Shaw, Alex, 2020. "Children weigh equity and efficiency in making allocation decisions: Evidence from the US, Israel, and China," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 702-714.
    67. Eckel, Catherine & Grossman, Philip J. & Johnson, Cathleen A. & de Oliveira, Angela C.M. & Rojas, Christian & Wilson, Rick, 2011. "Social norms of sharing in high school: Teen giving in the dictator game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 80(3), pages 603-612.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Steven Tucker & Yilong Xu, 2023. "Fairness, (perception of) inequality, and redistribution preferences," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(5), pages 1529-1533, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sutter, Matthias & Zoller, Claudia & Glätzle-Rützler, Daniela, 2019. "Economic behavior of children and adolescents – A first survey of experimental economics results," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 98-121.
    2. Bonan, Jacopo & Burlacu, Sergiu & Galliera, Arianna, 2023. "Prosociality in variants of the dictator game: Evidence from children in El Salvador," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    3. Erik O. Kimbrough & Alexander Vostroknutov, 2016. "Norms Make Preferences Social," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 608-638, June.
    4. Dohmen, Thomas, 2014. "Behavioral labor economics: Advances and future directions," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 71-85.
    5. Horn, Dániel & Kiss, Hubert János & Lénárd, Tünde, 2022. "Gender differences in preferences of adolescents: Evidence from a large-scale classroom experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 194(C), pages 478-522.
    6. He, Haoran & Wu, Keyu, 2016. "Choice set, relative income, and inequity aversion: An experimental investigation," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 177-193.
    7. Leibbrandt, Andreas & López-Pérez, Raúl & Spiegelman, Eli, 2023. "Reciprocal, but inequality averse as well? Mixed motives for punishment and reward," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 210(C), pages 91-116.
    8. Ingvild Almås & Alexander W. Cappelen & Bertil Tungodden, 2020. "Cutthroat Capitalism versus Cuddly Socialism: Are Americans More Meritocratic and Efficiency-Seeking than Scandinavians?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(5), pages 1753-1788.
    9. Martijn J. van den Assem & Dennie van Dolder & Richard H. Thaler, 2012. "Split or Steal? Cooperative Behavior When the Stakes Are Large," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(1), pages 2-20, January.
    10. Eckel, Catherine & Gintis, Herbert, 2010. "Blaming the messenger: Notes on the current state of experimental economics," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 109-119, January.
    11. Sutter, Matthias & Feri, Francesco & Glätzle-Rützler, Daniela & Kocher, Martin G. & Martinsson, Peter & Nordblom, Katarina, 2018. "Social preferences in childhood and adolescence. A large-scale experiment to estimate primary and secondary motivations," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 16-30.
    12. Ellingsen, Tore & Mohlin, Erik, 2019. "Decency," Working Papers 2019:3, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    13. Emin Karagözoğlu & Elif Tosun, 2022. "Endogenous Game Choice and Giving Behavior in Distribution Games," Games, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-32, November.
    14. Cox, James C. & Friedman, Daniel & Gjerstad, Steven, 2007. "A tractable model of reciprocity and fairness," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 17-45, April.
    15. Thorsten Chmura & Christoph Engel & Markus Englerth, 2013. "Selfishness As a Potential Cause of Crime. A Prison Experiment," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2013_05, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    16. van Damme, Eric & Binmore, Kenneth G. & Roth, Alvin E. & Samuelson, Larry & Winter, Eyal & Bolton, Gary E. & Ockenfels, Axel & Dufwenberg, Martin & Kirchsteiger, Georg & Gneezy, Uri & Kocher, Martin G, 2014. "How Werner Güth's ultimatum game shaped our understanding of social behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 292-318.
    17. Barron, Kai & Stüber, Robert & van Veldhuizen, Roel, 2019. "Motivated motive selection in the lying-dictator game," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Economics of Change SP II 2019-303, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    18. Kranz, Sebastian, 2010. "Moral norms in a partly compliant society," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 255-274, January.
    19. Walkowitz, Gari, 2017. "On the Validity of Cost-Saving Methods in Dictator-Game Experiments: A Systematic Test," MPRA Paper 83309, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Walkowitz, Gari, 2019. "On the Validity of Probabilistic (and Cost-Saving) Incentives in Dictator Games: A Systematic Test," MPRA Paper 91541, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jecsur:v:37:y:2023:i:5:p:1715-1742. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0950-0804 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.