Case Report
The developmental origins and behavioral consequences of attributions for inequality

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2022.104329Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Parents prefer to explain inequality by attributing disparities to effort.

  • Parent attributions for inequality predict their children's attributions.

  • Children allocate resources more inequitably when told inequality is due to effort.

Abstract

Attributions, or lay explanations for inequality, have been linked to inequality-relevant behavior. In adults and children, attributing inequality to an individual rather than contextual or structural causes is linked to greater support for economic inequality and less equitable giving. However, few studies have directly examined the relationship between parent and child attributions for inequality. Additionally, it remains unclear whether attributing inequality to individually controllable sources such as effort might lead children to allocate resources more inequitably than individually uncontrollable sources like innate ability. Across three studies (N = 698), we examine the developmental origins and behavioral consequences of inequality beliefs by exploring parent and children's (7–14 years old) attributions for unequal situations. In Study 1, parents, recruited through MTurk, preferred to explain inequality to their children by attributing disparities to effort rather than uncontrollable causes such as ability or luck. In Study 2, in a sample of affluent and mostly white families in Vancouver and Boston, parent attributions for inequality predicted children's attributions, such that children were more than two times as likely to attribute inequality to effort when their parents did. In Study 3, when a convenience sample of children from Washington state were brought to the laboratory and told that an inequality between two groups was due to effort, they were more likely to perpetuate the inequality by giving to the individual who already had more resources. This research documents a cycle of inequality perpetuation by demonstrating that parent attributions for inequality predict their children's attributions and that these attributions affect children's equitable giving. This work highlights the importance of examining the perceived controllability of inequality.

Section snippets

The development of attributions for inequality

Generally, attributions can be conceptualized along two key dimensions: locus of causality and controllability. Locus of causality refers to whether someone attributes the cause of a situation to an individual (referred to as an individual or dispositional attribution) or the context (referred to as a situational or structural attribution). The other key dimension is controllability, which is whether an individual perceives a situation or behavior as controllable or uncontrollable (Weiner, 1985

Distributive justice across development

In addition to examining the content of attributions for inequality in children of different ages, the current research tests the relationship between these attributions and giving behavior in childhood. A number of studies have examined children's use of effort (a controllable, dispositional attribution) as a guiding principle for distributing resources. In general, children have an aversion to unequal distributions and choose to allocate resources equally (e.g., Li, Spitzer, & Olson, 2014;

The current research

The current research examines the developmental origins and behavioral consequences of attributions for inequality across three studies. In our first study, we examine preferred explanations for inequality by asking parents how they would explain a number of inequality scenarios to their children (methods adapted from Hussak & Cimpian, 2015). In our second study, we explore whether parents' attributions for inequality predict their children's. In our final study, we explore the behavioral

Open practices statement

Preregistrations and de-identified datasets for all three studies can be found in our Open Science Framework repository (https://osf.io/8c4dv/). Complete materials are available in the Supplementary Material. For Study 1, the Boston sample of Study 2, and Study 3, we report all measures, manipulations, and exclusions. For the Vancouver sample of Study 2, additional unrelated measures were collected for a separate study on children's happiness and prosocial giving, which we do not report here.

Study 2

In Study 1, parents chose controllable dispositional attributions (i.e., effort) significantly more often than uncontrollable dispositional (i.e., innate ability) or uncontrollable situational attributions (i.e., luck) when asked to explain inequality to their children. Though replication is required to further substantiate these findings, these results are consistent with research showing that adults prefer controllable dispositional attributions (e.g., Piff et al., 2020). These results also

Study 3

Study 2 indicates that parents and children tend to make controllable dispositional attributions (i.e., effort) for inequality more than uncontrollable dispositional attributions (i.e., innate ability) or uncontrollable situational attributions (i.e., luck). Parents' attributions were predictive of their children's such that parents—and in particular mothers—who made more controllable dispositional attributions were more likely to have children who made these attributions. Together with the

Author note

This research is supported by a John Templeton Foundation subaward from Baylor University [grant number: 32270245-05-CIF] and Harvard Business School funding awarded to A.V. Whillans, and Western Washington University funding awarded to A.M. Gonzalez. Correspondence should be addressed to Antonya Gonzalez, Department of Psychology, Western Washington University, 516 High Street, MS 9172, Bellingham, WA, 98225; email: [email protected]. Preregistration documents and datasets for this

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