Children's experience of economic inequality: How earning position influences prosocial behavior

Across two experiments, children aged 4-6 years (N = 120) played a series of games with six puppets where each accrued tokens to exchange for stickers. Children were high or low earners, experiencing high inequality in Experiment 1 and low inequality in Experiment 2. Prosocial behavior towards the puppets assessed how children treat those who directly experience the economic environment, and children's donation behavior towards a poor, unknown child measured whether earning status affects children's broader generosity. When experiencing high economic inequality, children were more likely to give a spare token to a puppet who was in a contrasting position (e.g., poor children gave to rich puppets and rich children gave to poor), suggesting children will give to those who are least likely to threaten their own relative position. This study demonstrates for the first time how economic status can alter young children's prosocial behavior when confronted with inequality.