The influence of peer relationship on preschoolers' merit-based resource allocation in first-party and third-party contexts.

Purpose: Merit is a functional principle of distributive justice, and even young children take merit-based cues into consideration. Fairness requires an objective assessment of merit, but objectivity is often impaired by peer relationship. This study examined how preschool children incorporate recipients' peer relationship in allocating resources based on merit, in both first-party (Study 1) and third-party (Study 2) contexts.

Methods: A total of 240 children, aged 3 to 7, participated in the study. In Study 1, 120 children acquired resources through collaboration with either a stranger or a friend. In Study 2, the other 120 children observed cooperative interactions between pairs (friends and strangers, or two friends/strangers). In both studies, merit was manipulated.

Results: Study 1 found that age and self-performance influenced allocation decisions, with the influence of self-performance decreasing as children grew older. Around 5.50 years, children's allocation patterns shifted. Study 2 revealed that age and peer relationship jointly influenced children's merit-based allocation. At around age 5, children may reach a developmental milestone at which peer relationship begin to significantly influence merit-based allocation.

Conclusions: The findings highlight age-related changes in how children weigh merit and peer relationship in allocation decisions, reflecting a developmental trajectory to integrate multiple social cues. Our study provides important insights into the early development of distributive justice and fairness reasoning.