Reward Allocation in Preschool Children

LANE, IRVING M., and COON, ROBERT C. Reward Allocation in Preschool Children. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1972, 43, 1382-1389. The reward allocation behavior of 4and 5-year-old children was studied within the framework of equity theory. Children worked on a task with a fictitious partner whose performance they observed to be superior, equal, or inferior to their own. The children were then given rewards that their team had earned and told to divide them between themselves and their partner. Results indicated that 4-year-old children tended to distribute rewards self-interestedly by taking significantly more than half for themselves. The behavior of the 5-year-old children was consistent with the assumption that they employed the norm of equality when distributing rewards. No evidence was found to indicate that the behavior of preschool children is influenced by equity, the norm that mediates adult behavior in reward-allocation situations.