On the early development of disadvantageous inequity aversion

First person distributive fairness is thought to be a balance between self and, sometimes conflicting, other regarding concerns. Whereas concern for other’s outcomes – that is, Advantageous Inequity Aversion (AIA), has been shown to be a late emerging response to unfairness linked to reciprocity, reputation, and cultural norms of fairness, the concern for one own’s outcomes – that is, Disadvantageous Inequity Aversion (DIA), has been documented in children as young as 4-years of age in the Inequity game and it has been proposed to be linked to competition, spite, and an early emerging sense of fairness with a focus on the self. However, little work has examined whether implicit and explicit DIA is already present in children younger than 4, much less explored the cognitive mechanisms associated with its early development. Here, we examined whether DIA is present before 4-years of age (i.e., 2-year-olds) using an apparatus especially sensitive to implicit responses (Chapter 2), validated a methodology that weights implicit and explicit responses equally while showing that implicit and explicit DIA is already present by the second year of life (Chapter 3), and examined whether understanding the cardinal principle of counting or cardinal number word knowledge more generally is linked early in development to DIA finding support for the second hypothesis (Chapter 4). Together, these results provide novel insights into the emergence of DIA, highlighting the foundational nature of DIA in children’s responses to inequality. These findings have profound implications for theories of fairness and early economic decision-making more broadly.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2025

Author dc:creator

• Sanchez Hernandez, Fernando

Contributors dc:contributor

• Hyde, Daniel
• Baillargeon, Renée
• Fisher, Cynthia
• Rizzo, Michael
• Straka, Brenda

• disadvantageous inequity aversion
• development
• number knowledge
• fairness
• toddlers

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2025 Fernando Sanchez Hernandez

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/129616

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F129616