Two researchers from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Tilburg University in the Netherlands and the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna are investigating what is fair and what is unfair and how this develops as a perception in infancy. The behavioural experiment has been published in the journal Communications Psychology.

Düsseldorf. September 30th, 2024 – a familiar scenario! Seven-year-old Lukas complains loudly when his friend Henry gets one more scoop of ice cream than he does. Although – or perhaps because (?) – he feels unfairly treated, he doesn’t give his friend Leo, who has no ice cream at all, a bite. Lisa, on the other hand, shares her ice cream with Leo. But then, the following day, Lukas has chocolate with him, which he willingly gives to Lisa.

Girls are more willing to share and boys are very good at recognising the injustices that seem to work against them. At the same time, however, the boys treat other children unfairly in the same way they feel. A stereotype that seems to stop at chocolate, however. It has long been known that males have an arithmetic of justice, whereas females build and maintain social bonds.

Prof. Dr Tobias Kalenscher, Chair of Comparative Psychology in Düsseldorf, Dr Lina Oberließen, Wolf Research Centre at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna and Prof. Dr Marijn van Wingerden from the Department of Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence at Tilburg University are investigating how the sense of fairness and unfairness develops in children.

Based on an experiment with just over 300 children between the ages of 3 and 8, gender-specific stereotypes could indeed be demonstrated. However, it is also interesting to note that the attitude towards fairness was not only dependent on gender, but also on the gender of the children with whom they interacted. An interaction was therefore established.

Van Wingerden: „We found the typical gender stereotypes – girls are more compassionate, the competitive behaviour of boys is more pronounced.“ Oberließen adds: „But the story is more complicated. For example, envy is more likely to be expressed against boys than against girls in both sexes. And boys are much more compassionate when they share their resources with girls than with other boys.“

Dr Oberließen on the results: „We did indeed find gender-specific effects. Girls were more compassionate than boys. Interestingly, however, there was the same level of resentment in both genders when a boy was the recipient of a larger portion. This suggests that envy towards boys is generally greater.“ Boys also seem to be more spiteful towards their own gender: they always chose the largest possible number of stickers for themselves, even if their counterpart was left empty-handed.

Prof Kalenscher concludes from the results: „Gender stereotypes are omnipresent in today’s society. Our study underlines that gender-specific differences in social behaviour are indeed empirically observable, even in young children. This may contribute to cultural, stereotypical gender roles in adulthood. However, we also see that gender-specific differences, at least in the area of fairness preferences, become entrenched over a longer period of time. This observation leaves room to promote non-gender-stereotypical fairness attitudes during the critical phase of childhood.“

With regard to this particular experiment, it could be shown that there are interactions and that certain stereotypes can persist in one gender, especially in childhood. However, justice arithmetic is a fundamental behaviour that is anchored in people. As Prof. Kalenscher describes, a behavioural pattern can become entrenched and thus cultivated over a longer period of time.

Originalpublication:

Marijn van Wingerden, Lina Oberließen & Tobias Kalenscher. Egalitarian preferences in young children depend on the genders of the interacting partners. Communications Psychology 2, 89 (2024).

DOI: 10.1038/s44271-024-00139-9

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