社会地位对儿童基于贡献的分配公平性的影响：认知和脑机制研究

Distributive justice concerns how individuals and societies allocate benefits in a fair or moral way. It is important for children’s moral development and considered as the basis of cooperation and sharing behavior. As the main form of fair distribution, merit-based distribution deserves special attention in China which advocates character education of equality and justice. However, the actual distribution situation is much complex and influenced by various social factors. For example, compared with whites, children tended to give more resources to blacks when they made equal merit, indicating that social status can influence children’s distributive justice. Previous studies of race factor have not fully illustrated how children allocate resources in the context when merit and social status are conflicting, and less is known about the mechanisms of such complex distributive behavior. Combining the multiple measures of explicit behavior, introspective strategy and brain activity, this study utilizes novel situation-based experiments and ERP techniques to explore the developmental characteristics, cognitive and neural mechanisms of children’s weighing of merit and social status under Chinese cultural context. In the first three experiments, we examine children’s merit-based resource allocation and explore the roles of material and social resource status. In experiment 4 and 5, we investigate the moderate effect of theory of mind and empathy on children’s resource allocation. In experiment 6 and 7, we use ERP to investigate the neural mechanism of merit-based and social status-related resource allocation. This study will systematically reveal the stages, complexities and individual differences in children’s weighing of moral and social motivation during resource allocation, and provide vital evidence for understanding and guiding the development of children’s fair cognition and behavior.

分配公平性指以公平或道德的方式分配资源，是儿童道德发展的重要内容，也是合作和分享行为的基础。“基于贡献的分配”作为公平分配的主要依据，在我国倡导公平公正品格教育背景下尤其值得关注。然而，现实分配情境非常复杂，还受到各种社会因素影响。如对相同贡献的黑人和白人，儿童倾向给黑人更多的奖励，说明社会地位会影响儿童的分配公平性。以往研究缺少对贡献和除种族外其他性质社会地位的综合考察，也缺乏对这种复杂分配行为内在机制的探讨。本研究运用情境实验和ERP技术，综合外显行为、内省策略、大脑活动三类指标，探索儿童在贡献和社会地位冲突情境下进行分配的发展特点及认知和脑机制。实验1-3探讨儿童基于贡献的分配行为和策略及物质和社会资源地位的影响；实验4-5考察心理理论和共情如何影响分配；实验6-7对脑机制进行探索。研究将揭示儿童权衡道德和社会动机进行分配的阶段性、复杂性和个体差异性，为引导儿童公平认知和行为提供依据

本项目通过四项研究共11个实验从行为、认知机制和脑机制层面深入考察了接受者贡献和社会地位对儿童资源分配行为的影响，以及当两种线索共同存在时儿童对两者之间关系的认知及其在资源分配行为上的反映。其中，研究一发现儿童从3岁开始就能够基于接受者贡献多少进行分配，当做出贡献的双方分别为内外群体成员时，儿童随年龄的增长能逐渐克服内群体偏爱进行按贡献的公平分配。研究二发现接受者初始社会资源数量能影响儿童基于资源价值的分配行为，具体表现为随年龄增长，3-8岁儿童会越来越多地通过资源价值纠正接受者的初始资源不平等。进一步划分接受者社会地位类型后发现，接受者财富、权力和声望地位会影响儿童的资源分配行为，具体表现为3-8岁儿童在接受者财富和权力地位不等情境下进行资源分配时会逐渐从保持接受者社会地位差异发展为补偿低地位个体，在声望地位不等情境下稳定地保持社会地位差异。当财富或权力地位不等的两名接受者贡献不等时，3-11岁儿童能够首先基于贡献进行分配，但同时受社会地位的影响，年幼儿童会在高地位个体贡献多时基于贡献分配的程度更大，年长儿童则相反。通过考察儿童对不同社会地位个体贡献的预期发现，年幼儿童期待做出更多贡献的是高地位个体，年长儿童则相反，说明儿童对个体社会地位和贡献的关系形成刻板印象，通过被试内设计同时考察儿童这种刻板印象和分配行为后发现，儿童的预期和行为呈正相关，即儿童对社会地位与贡献关系的刻板印象与其在资源分配中偏爱高或低地位个体有直接的相关关系。研究三发现心理理论对儿童在权力地位情境下的补偿行为有正向预测作用。研究四通过fNIRS技术发现儿童在加工接受者社会地位信息时背外侧前额叶的激活存在年龄差异，表现为年长儿童比年幼儿童激活程度更高，说明儿童对社会地位的神经加工深度随年龄提高。

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