Moral gradients based on social boundaries: Children prioritize themselves and their ingroup when resources are limited

Abstract

In an ideal world, there would be sufficient resources to be fairly allocated to everyone. The reality, however, is that resources are often limited. How do children navigate resource distribution decisions in the face of scarcity and sufficiency? Our study consisted of two experiments with 4- to 12-year-olds (N = 96), where children were required to distribute resources among themselves, a gender ingroup member, and a gender outgroup member when there was a limited number of resources (Experiment 1) and when there were sufficient resources for an equitable distribution (Experiment 2). When resources were limited, children demonstrated an overall tendency to allocate more resources to themselves and the gender ingroup member at a disadvantage of the gender outgroup member. However, children were not indifferent to the welfare of the gender outgroup member, as evidenced by their tendency to minimize the disadvantage that the gender outgroup member experienced. Furthermore, when the number of resources allowed for an equitable distribution, children showed a robust tendency to fairly allocate the same number of resources to each individual. Thus, our findings suggest that children were acting on a moral gradient, whereby they included both the gender ingroup member and the gender outgroup member within their moral considerations, albeit demonstrating slight favoritism toward the former.