LiteratureBase

Fair Is Not Fair Everywhere.
Schäfer, M., Haun, DBM, & Tomasello, M. (2015). Fair Is Not Fair Everywhere. Psychological Science, 26(8), 1252–1260. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615586188

Abstract

  • Distributing the spoils of a joint enterprise on the basis of work contribution or relative productivity seems natural to the modern Western mind. But such notions of merit-based distributive justice may be culturally constructed norms that vary with the social and economic structure of a group. In the present research, we showed that children from three different cultures have very different ideas about distributive justice. Whereas children from a modern Western society distributed the spoils of a joint enterprise precisely in proportion to productivity, children from a gerontocratic pastoralist society in Africa did not take merit into account at all. Children from a partially hunter-gatherer, egalitarian African culture distributed the spoils more equally than did the other two cultures, with merit playing only a limited role. This pattern of results suggests that some basic notions of distributive justice are not universal intuitions of the human species but rather culturally constructed behavioral norms.
Link to Publication
  • Concepts Culture, Development of behavior, Fairness, Function of behavior, Moral cognition, Norm psychology
  • Relevant research methods Behavioral research/Psychology

Related Lesson Materials

“Fair” does not always mean the same thing

These lesson materials introduce students to issues of fairness and various interpretations of it. Reflecting on results of a cross-cultural experiment with children, students discuss how we can use our understandings to create a more fair world.

Related Literature

OpenEvo is an educational innovation project from the Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

Evolve the future of education with us!

Creative Commons (CC-BY-SA) 2022- OpenEvo

Imprint