Third-party punishment of selfish individuals is an important mechanism to intervene against unfairness. However, there is another way in which third parties can intervene. Rather than focusing on the unfair individual, third parties can choose to help those who were treated unfairly by reducing inequality. Such third-party helping as an alternative to third-party punishment has received little attention in studies with children. Across four studies, we examined the evaluations of third-party punishment versus third-party helping in N = 322 5- to 9-year-old children. Study 1, 3 and 4 showed that when asked about the agents directly, children evaluated both helpers and punishers positively, but they preferred helpers over punishers overall. When asked about the type of intervention itself, children preferred helping over punishment, suggesting that their preference for the type of intervention corresponds to how children think about the agents performing these interventions. Study 2 showed that children's preference for third-party helping is driven by distributive justice concerns and not a mere preference for giving or resource maximization as children consider which type of third-party intervention decreases inequality. Together, these studies demonstrate that children between 5 and 9 years of age develop a sophisticated understanding of punishment and helping as two adequate forms of intervention, but also display a preference for third-party helping. We discuss how these findings and prior work with adults support the hypothesis of developmental continuity, showing that a preference for helping over punishment is deeply rooted in ontogeny.

自私个人的第三方惩罚是干预不公平的重要机制。但是，第三方可以通过另一种方式进行干预。与其关注不公平的个人，第三方可以选择通过减少不平等来帮助那些受到不公平对待的人。这种第三方帮助作为第三方惩罚的替代方式在儿童研究中很少受到关注。在四项研究中，我们检查了N中第三方惩罚与第三方帮助的评估 = 322 名 5 至 9 岁儿童。研究 1、3 和 4 表明，当直接询问代理人时，儿童对帮助者和惩罚者的评价都是积极的，但他们更喜欢帮助者而不是惩罚者。当被问及干预本身的类型时，孩子们更喜欢帮助而不是惩罚，这表明他们对干预类型的偏好与孩子们对执行这些干预的代理人的看法相对应。研究 2 表明，儿童对第三方帮助的偏好是由分配正义问题驱动的，而不仅仅是对给予或资源最大化的偏好，因为儿童会考虑哪种类型的第三方干预会减少不平等。一起，这些研究表明，5 至 9 岁的儿童对惩罚和帮助作为两种适当的干预形式有了深刻的理解，但也表现出对第三方帮助的偏好。我们讨论了这些发现和先前与成年人的合作如何支持发育连续性假设，表明对帮助而非惩罚的偏好深深植根于个体发育。