Daggration, or justice of babies

People wish justice, and not only in relation to themselves. They often intervene when they infringe on the interests of third parties, and the company contains special services to maintain order. All this is expensive, but people go to costs. What drives them: the arguments of the mind or the call of the heart? In search of an answer to this question, the psychologists of the Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology of the Society of Max Planck (Germany), Manchester and St. Andrews Universities (Great Britain) conducted a series of experiments with children of three and five years [1] . Researchers were interested in how a sense of justice in young children is developed, who, of course, explain what is good and what is bad, but they strictly do not collect for violation of these rules.

The research was attended by several dozen German boys and girls. The child was seated at the table, divided into four sectors. To his left was a pilefriend depicting a victim of injustice, on the contrary-a puppet-warrior. To the right of the child was the closed sector, the “cave”: what got into it does not return back. The thief and the child could turn the table clockwise, pulling the rope. At the beginning of the experiment, either a child or before a victim put cookies or a toy (Fig. 1a, c). Then the thief pulled the rope and turned the table, moving the toy to him (Fig. 1C). The victim’s doll is not able to do anything, and the child understood this, but he himself could intervene, pulling the rope at his end and turning the table so that the object irrevocably hid in the cave (Fig. 1d). Further the table does not rotate. Now no one got the toy, but the thief was punished and could not take anything in the second and third times (Fig. 2a).

Researchers were interested in whether children perceive the insult caused to a third party (doll) as close to heart as their own. It turned out yes. When the toy was taken from the three -year -olds, they turned the table in half of cases and intervened in 40% of cases when the conflict occurred between two dolls. Five -year periods took revenge for themselves in 80% of cases and about 70% stood up for the puppet (Fig. 3).

Alas, theft is not the only reason why you can lose the coveted property in our imperfect society. And psychologists offered children several other options. For example, the third puppet will come, pulls the rope, and the toy “floats” to the doll-water, which in this situation is not a thief at all, but received someone else's thing (Fig. 2B). Or passing by the doll deprives the owner of the toy, but no one gets it, because there is no doll at the table at all (Fig. 2s). And finally, the option in which the doll asks the toy from its owner (Fig. 2D). How can I not give it out?

The results of the experiments are presented in Fig. 3. And in these situations, children react to someone else's offense as their own. It is interesting that three- and five-year-old kids do not see much difference between the three options for leaving the toy or goodies and protest against them with approximately equal frequency. In other words, evaluating each episode, children pay attention to its consequences for the victim, which was unjustly deprived of a valuable thing, and not to what kind of doll this doll and who ultimately got a gift. The exception is only a case when a puppet, before taking a toy, asked permission. Children understood that asking was not like stealing or getting someone else's, and when a doll or they themselves gave the toy, they sent the object to the cave less often. Three -year -old children have no idea about the rule of law. Explaining the conditions of the experiment, none of the adults used the word “punishment”, and the dolls from which the toys were taken were not protested. But in babies, it turns out that a sense of justice is very developed. Psychologists conducted a second experiment with them, in which the three -year -olds had the opportunity to rotate the table in both directions and not only take objects from the thief, but also return them to the owner. In such a situation, they practically stopped using the cave. In approximately 80% of cases, children returned an unjustly withdrawn subject (in other episodes they simply did not pull the rope). If they took the toy, after asking, then the children used the opportunity to get it back in 40% of cases.

When someone offended the doll, the children intervened in 60–80% of cases and almost always to return the gift. If the doll herself gave the toy, they were engaged in diralum much less often. In these cases, however, the puppet was far from always received by the given thing: enterprising babies dragged a present for themselves. In other situations, children also touched, but very rarely. Researchers emphasize that children consider the help of the victim a much more important matter than the punishment of the offender or the prevention of further offenses.

Studies of German and British psychologists for the first time reveal a sense of justice in such young children. Their conclusions, however, contradict the results that the psychologists of Yale and Harvard Universities received a little earlier [2] . Scientists worked with children of five and six years old, who were offered to evaluate whether the candies were honestly divided. In these experiments, five -year -old kids did not see the difference between equal and unequal distribution of sweets. Perhaps the difference in cultural traditions played a role in which the little Germans and Americans were brought up. German psychologists, by the way, understand this and plan to conduct research with children of other nationalities.

One of the American researchers, Katherine Macauliffe, believes that it is a matter of experimenting. American psychologists showed children only the result of the division, a static picture. The young “judges” did not see the process itself. Perhaps German children were impressed by the action itself. They reacted very emotionally to the events that took place, accompanied their actions with vengeful comments like: “You won’t get it”, “You won’t do that anymore”, gave puppets names, talked with them, discussing what was happening with the moderator.

The American participants in the experiment told the story of how a kind of anonymous child divided six sweets into two: either he distributed them equally, or took all the sweets for himself. The participants saw only the conditional portraits of the children and the results of the deeds, which could either be accepted or rejected by moving the lever to the "green" or "red" side. In the latter case, none of the painted children receive sweets. The results of the experience are presented in Fig. 4 (experiment 1). Five -year -old children reject a fair and unjust distribution with equal frequency, six -year -olds already see the difference.

But American psychologists did not stop there and in the second part of the experiment asked children to pay justice. Each baby had its own sweets, and he had to give one for each rejected distribution, it was possible to agree for free. The need to pay significantly reduced the number of rejected distributions, but did not change their ratios: five -year periods poorly distinguished equal and unequal division, six -year -old children coped with this much better. Then psychologists have checked whether the causes of unequal division affect the solution of six -year -olds. They conducted a second experiment in which a child who allegedly shared sweets distributed them equally, or gave them everything else in a fit of generosity. As in the first experiment, children more often reject unequal division, but do this less often than in the case when it is caused by egoism (Fig. 4, experiment 2). The need to fork out significantly reduces the hunt to send justice. Thus, American children begin to feel injustice against third parties between five and six years and are ready to punish dishonesty, even if they have to pay for it. The older the children, the more often they are ready to sacrifice for the sake of justice by their own candy. They say America is a country of lawyers.

1. Redl K., Jensen K., Call J., Tomasello M. Restorative Justice in Children // Current Biology. 2015 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub 2015.05.014.

2. McAuliffe K., Jordan JJ, and Warneken F. Costly Thirty Punishment in Young Children // 2015. No. 134. R. 1–10- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25460374