title: Preschoolers' understanding of merit in two Asian societies.
abstract: Recent research in moral psychology have suggested that children make judgments about distributive justice early on in development, and in particular they appear to be able to use merit when distributing the benefits of a collective action. This prediction has recently been validated in various western cultures but it is unknown whether it also applies to more collectivistic cultures, in which the group might be favoured over the individual, and need over merit. Here, we investigate merit-based distributions among 81 children belonging to two Asian societies, China and Japan (mean age = 5.0 years). In line with the idea that children's moral psychology develops early, we found that Chinese and Japanese children are able to use merit to distribute the benefits of a collective action.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives, INSERM U960, DEC, Ecole Normale Supérieure-PSL Research University, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Coralie
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Chevallier
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, United States of America.
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Urban-Culture Research Center, Graduate School of Literature and Human Sciences, Osaka City University, Sumiyoshi, Osaka, Japan.
authors.forename: Kuniko
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Adachi
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire Langage, Cerveau et Cognition (L2C2), CNRS, Université de Lyon, UMR 5304, Institut des Sciences Cognitives, Bron, France.
authors.forename: Jean-Baptiste
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: van der Henst
authors.affiliation: Institut Jean-Nicod, UMR 8129, DEC, Ecole Normale Supérieure-PSL Research University, Paris, France; Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Oxford, Oxford, England, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Nicolas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Baumard
mesh_terms: D044466:Asian People / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002681:China; D032882:Comprehension / Q000941:ethics*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D009014:Morals; D002666:Psychology, Child