"I had so much it didn't seem fair": Eight-year-olds reject two forms of inequity.
TL;DR: The results showed that 4- to 7-year-olds rejected disadvantageous offers, but accepted advantageous offers, which suggest that two distinct mechanisms underlie the development of the two forms of inequity aversion.
About: This article is published in Cognition.The article was published on 2011-08-01. It has received 377 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Inequity aversion & Equity (economics).
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18 Nov 2013
TL;DR: The book describes experiments in Strategic Interaction using game theory as a guide to solving social problems.
Abstract: หนงสอ Behavioral Game Theory: Experiments in Strategic Interaction เขยนโดย Colin F. Camerer มวตถประสงคเพอนำเสนอหลกฐานเชงประจกษจากผลการวจยจำนวนมากมายทยนยนอทธพลของปจจยทางจตวทยาทมผลตอการตดสนใจตามทฤษฎเกม หนงสอ เลมนไดนำเสนอแนวคดทฤษฎทเพมความสามารถในการอธบายพฤตกรรมการตดสนใจตามทฤษฎเกม (Game theory) ซง von Neumann; & Morgenstern ไดเสนอไวในป ค.ศ. 1944 โดยชใหเหนวา ปจจยทางจตวทยามอทธพลทำใหการตดสนใจทเกดขนจรงคลาดเคลอนจากการคาดการณของทฤษฎเกม
903 citations
TL;DR: An approach to morality is developed as an adaptation to an environment in which individuals were in competition to be chosen and recruited in mutually advantageous cooperative interactions, and the best strategy is to treat others with impartiality and to share the costs and benefits of cooperation equally.
Abstract: What makes humans moral beings? This question can be understood either as a proximate "how" question or as an ultimate "why" question. The "how" question is about the mental and social mechanisms that produce moral judgments and interactions, and has been investigated by psychologists and social scientists. The "why" question is about the fitness consequences that explain why humans have morality, and has been discussed by evolutionary biologists in the context of the evolution of cooperation. Our goal here is to contribute to a fruitful articulation of such proximate and ultimate explanations of human morality. We develop an approach to morality as an adaptation to an environment in which individuals were in competition to be chosen and recruited in mutually advantageous cooperative interactions. In this environment, the best strategy is to treat others with impartiality and to share the costs and benefits of cooperation equally. Those who offer less than others will be left out of cooperation; conversely, those who offer more will be exploited by their partners. In line with this mutualistic approach, the study of a range of economic games involving property rights, collective actions, mutual help and punishment shows that participants' distributions aim at sharing the costs and benefits of interactions in an impartial way. In particular, the distribution of resources is influenced by effort and talent, and the perception of each participant's rights on the resources to be distributed.
407 citations
TL;DR: The data suggest that, although 3-year-olds know the norm of equal sharing, the weight that children attach to this norm increases with age when sharing involves a cost to the self.
Abstract: Young children endorse fairness norms related to sharing, but often act in contradiction to those norms when given a chance to share This phenomenon has rarely been explored in the context of a single study Using a novel approach, the research presented here offers clear evidence of this discrepancy and goes on to examine possible explanations for its diminution with age In Study 1, 3–8-year-old children readily stated that they themselves should share equally, asserted that others should as well, and predicted that others had shared equally with them Nevertheless, children failed to engage in equal sharing until ages 7–8 In Study 2, 7–8-year-olds correctly predicted that they would share equally, and 3–6-year-olds correctly predicted that they would favor themselves, ruling out a failure-of-willpower explanation for younger children's behavior Similarly, a test of inhibitory control in Study 1 also failed to explain the shift with age toward adherence to the endorsed norm The data suggest that, although 3-year-olds know the norm of equal sharing, the weight that children attach to this norm increases with age when sharing involves a cost to the self
327 citations
TL;DR: This work examines how fairness behaviour develops in children from seven diverse societies, testing children from 4 to 15 years of age in a standardized resource decision task and shows that disadvantageous inequity aversion emerged across all populations by middle childhood.
Abstract: An analysis of when children develop a sense of fairness (receiving less or more than a peer) is compared across seven different societies; aversion to receiving less emerges early in childhood in all societies, whereas aversion to receiving more emerges later in childhood and only in three of the seven societies studied. Previous research has shown that children develop a sense of fairness during childhood, but it is not known how the two components of this — aversion to being unfairly treated and aversion to seeing others unfairly treated — vary across cultures. These authors conducted experiments in seven cultures and find that aversion to being unfairly treated emerges early in childhood and consistently across cultures. Aversion to seeing others unfairly treated emerges later in childhood and is only seen in the experiment in three of the seven cultures studied. A sense of fairness plays a critical role in supporting human cooperation1,2,3. Adult norms of fair resource sharing vary widely across societies, suggesting that culture shapes the acquisition of fairness behaviour during childhood4,5. Here we examine how fairness behaviour develops in children from seven diverse societies, testing children from 4 to 15 years of age (n = 866 pairs) in a standardized resource decision task6,7. We measured two key aspects of fairness decisions: disadvantageous inequity aversion (peer receives more than self) and advantageous inequity aversion (self receives more than a peer). We show that disadvantageous inequity aversion emerged across all populations by middle childhood. By contrast, advantageous inequity aversion was more variable, emerging in three populations and only later in development. We discuss these findings in relation to questions about the universality and cultural specificity of human fairness.
304 citations
References
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TL;DR: This paper showed that if some people care about equity, the puzzles can be resolved and that the economic environment determines whether the fair types or the selesh types dominate equilibrium behavior in cooperative games.
Abstract: There is strong evidence that people exploit their bargaining power in competitivemarkets butnot inbilateral bargainingsituations. Thereisalsostrong evidence that people exploit free-riding opportunities in voluntary cooperation games. Yet, when they are given the opportunity to punish free riders, stable cooperation is maintained, although punishment is costly for those who punish. This paper asks whether there is a simple common principle that can explain this puzzling evidence. We show that if some people care about equity the puzzles can be resolved. It turns out that the economic environment determines whether the fair types or the selesh types dominate equilibrium behavior.
8,783 citations
TL;DR: This article showed that if a fraction of the people exhibit inequality aversion, stable cooperation is maintained although punishment is costly for those who punish, and they also showed that when they are given the opportunity to punish free riders, stable cooperations are maintained.
Abstract: There is strong evidence that people exploit their bargaining power in competitive markets but not in bilateral bargaining situations. There is also strong evidence that people exploit free-riding opportunities in voluntary cooperation games. Yet, when they are given the opportunity to punish free riders, stable cooperation is maintained although punishment is costly for those who punish. This paper asks whether there is a simple common principle that can explain this puzzling evidence. We show that if a fraction of the people exhibits inequality aversion the puzzles can be resolved.
6,919 citations
""I had so much it didn't seem fair"..." refers background in this paper
...…both when they are offered less than a social partner – disadvantageous inequity – and when they are offered more – advantageous inequity (Camerer, 2003; Dawes, Fowler, Johnson, McElreath, & Smirnov, 2007; Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003; Fehr & Schmidt, 1999; Guth, Schmittberger, & Schwarze, 1982)....
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...Using experimental games with real rewards, researchers have found that some adults will sacrifice benefits to themselves in order to correct or avoid unequal outcomes, both when they are offered less than a social partner – disadvantageous inequity – and when they are offered more – advantageous inequity (Camerer, 2003; Dawes, Fowler, Johnson, McElreath, & Smirnov, 2007; Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003; Fehr & Schmidt, 1999; Guth, Schmittberger, & Schwarze, 1982)....
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...The allocations of candy were presented by an experimenter in order to ensure that the deciders were not responding to intentions of the other player, i.e., negative reciprocity (Blount, 1995; Falk & Fischbacher, 2006)....
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...This game was similar to a forced choice mini-UG done with adults and older children in that the decision maker could either accept an unequal outcome or reject it so that both players received zero (Sutter, 2007; Falk, Fehr, & Fischbacher, 2003)....
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TL;DR: The best-performing measure incorporates data from the IAT's practice trials, uses a metric that is calibrated by each respondent's latency variability, and includes a latency penalty for errors, and strongly outperforms the earlier (conventional) procedure.
Abstract: In reporting Implicit Association Test (IAT) results, researchers have most often used scoring conventions described in the first publication of the IAT (A.G. Greenwald, D.E. McGhee, & J.L.K. Schwartz, 1998). Demonstration IATs available on the Internet have produced large data sets that were used in the current article to evaluate alternative scoring procedures. Candidate new algorithms were examined in terms of their (a) correlations with parallel self-report measures, (b) resistance to an artifact associated with speed of responding, (c) internal consistency, (d) sensitivity to known influences on IAT measures, and (e) resistance to known procedural influences. The best-performing measure incorporates data from the IAT's practice trials, uses a metric that is calibrated by each respondent's latency variability, and includes a latency penalty for errors. This new algorithm strongly outperforms the earlier (conventional) procedure.
5,049 citations
TL;DR: Five mechanisms for the evolution of cooperation are discussed: kin selection, direct reciprocity, indirect reciprocities, network reciprocation, group selection, and group selection.
Abstract: Cooperation is needed for evolution to construct new levels of organization. Genomes, cells, multicellular organisms, social insects, and human society are all based on cooperation. Cooperation means that selfish replicators forgo some of their reproductive potential to help one another. But natural selection implies competition and therefore opposes cooperation unless a specific mechanism is at work. Here I discuss five mechanisms for the evolution of cooperation: kin selection, direct reciprocity, indirect reciprocity, network reciprocity, and group selection. For each mechanism, a simple rule is derived that specifies whether natural selection can lead to cooperation.
4,899 citations
""I had so much it didn't seem fair"..." refers background in this paper
...This anonymous design eliminates any expectations of eventual reciprocity by the peer and also minimizes proposers’ concerns about their reputation (Nowak, 2006; Nowak & Sigmund, 2005)....
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Book•
17 Mar 2003TL;DR: The first substantial and authoritative effort to close this gap was made by Camerer, who used psychological principles and hundreds of experiments to develop mathematical theories of reciprocity, limited strategizing, and learning, which help predict what real people and companies do in strategic situations as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Game theory, the formalized study of strategy, began in the 1940s by asking how emotionless geniuses should play games, but ignored until recently how average people with emotions and limited foresight actually play games. This book marks the first substantial and authoritative effort to close this gap. Colin Camerer, one of the field's leading figures, uses psychological principles and hundreds of experiments to develop mathematical theories of reciprocity, limited strategizing, and learning, which help predict what real people and companies do in strategic situations. Unifying a wealth of information from ongoing studies in strategic behavior, he takes the experimental science of behavioral economics a major step forward. He does so in lucid, friendly prose.
Behavioral game theory has three ingredients that come clearly into focus in this book: mathematical theories of how moral obligation and vengeance affect the way people bargain and trust each other; a theory of how limits in the brain constrain the number of steps of "I think he thinks . . ." reasoning people naturally do; and a theory of how people learn from experience to make better strategic decisions. Strategic interactions that can be explained by behavioral game theory include bargaining, games of bluffing as in sports and poker, strikes, how conventions help coordinate a joint activity, price competition and patent races, and building up reputations for trustworthiness or ruthlessness in business or life.
While there are many books on standard game theory that address the way ideally rational actors operate, Behavioral Game Theory stands alone in blending experimental evidence and psychology in a mathematical theory of normal strategic behavior. It is must reading for anyone who seeks a more complete understanding of strategic thinking, from professional economists to scholars and students of economics, management studies, psychology, political science, anthropology, and biology.
4,701 citations
""I had so much it didn't seem fair"..." refers background in this paper
...Using experimental games with real rewards, researchers have found that some adults will sacrifice benefits to themselves in order to correct or avoid unequal outcomes, both when they are offered less than a social partner – disadvantageous inequity – and when they are offered more – advantageous inequity (Camerer, 2003; Dawes, Fowler, Johnson, McElreath, & Smirnov, 2007; Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003; Fehr & Schmidt, 1999; Guth, Schmittberger, & Schwarze, 1982)....
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...…outcomes, both when they are offered less than a social partner – disadvantageous inequity – and when they are offered more – advantageous inequity (Camerer, 2003; Dawes, Fowler, Johnson, McElreath, & Smirnov, 2007; Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003; Fehr & Schmidt, 1999; Guth, Schmittberger, &…...
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...The rejection of any positive offer is considered irrational in many economic models of human behavior (Camerer, 2003)....
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