Age, Representatives’ Prior Performance, and the Distribution of Winnings with Teammates

Boys in 56 dyad-teams (each composed of a ‘representative’ and a ‘partner’) played resource-distribution games to divide winnings which the representatives had achieved in earlier games with representatives of other dyads. The representative’s prior performance (having emerged with more or less money than his opponent) interacted with age to influence the outcome of the within-team distribution. Representatives who had earlier lost came out of the final game with less than their partners in young (7–9) dyads, but with more than their partners in old dyads (13–15), and about the same as their partners in intermediate (10–12) dyads. These and other results were discussed in terms of somewhat different notions of ‘equity’ as defined by Adams and Piaget.