Fair is fair. Norwegian school children in this study worked hard to earn their money before deciding on a fair way to share it.
Credit: Image courtesy of Knut Egil Wang
Posted on 05/28/2010 8:56:32 PM PDT by neverdem
Children start off like Karl Marx, but they eventually become more like a member of the International Olympic Committee. That's the conclusion of a new study, which finds that children's views on fairness change from egalitarian to merit-based as they grow older. The results help explain why society rewards high achievers with high pay, and they could help educators better motivate children.
The find comes thanks to an economic experiment known as the dictator game. Researchers led by experimental economist Alexander Cappelen of the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration in Bergen recruited youths aged 10 through 18 from schools near Bergen. Each child was paired with another student he or she didn't know and then given a chance to earn real money by repeatedly noting the appearance of a particular three-figure number on a computer screen filled with large tables of numbers. Some students performed better at the task and thus earned more money. At the end of the game, the money earned by the pair was pooled, and one of the two students—the dictator—was asked to divvy up the cash with his or her partner in a way that he or she deemed fair.
Age determined how evenly the children divided up the earnings. About two-thirds of the youngest children, aged 10 to 11, split the pot evenly regardless of their own or their partner's achievements. Older teenagers, however, split the pot based on achievement. Among 18-year-olds, for example, only 22% split the pot evenly with their partner, whereas 43% kept more for themselves because they felt like they'd earned it, the researchers report in tomorrow's issue of Science.
The results suggest that concepts of fairness become more merit-based as children grow up and as they participate in activities like sports and school that reward achievement, Cappelen says. "Adolescence is a very important period for shaping children's fairness views." The results could also help educators set up reward systems that the students themselves consider fair, he adds, which could lead to more harmonious classrooms and better student performance.
"I think it's an interesting and important study," says behavioral economist James Konow of Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California. But he is not as convinced as the authors that concepts of fairness are shaped by experience.
Listen to a podcast about this story.
So, basically this is saying that liberals are mentally 10-year olds.
That makes sense.
I think that gives them too much credit.
The craziness of true Marxism is that it realizes that early humans did it because they had to. As soon as they advanced, things changed. However, they think that the old tribe way of ‘nobody gets ahead’ (which never really existed, there was always a chief or leader of some sort) is the ultimate human condition to be in. Nuts.
Explains why ‘rats want to lower the voting age. (If you didn’t already know.)
LOL How’d the Churchill quote go? If you’re not a liberal in your grade school years you have no heart, if you’re not a conservative by the time you overcome bedwetting you have no brain... or something to that effect.
Indeed. Marxism is regressive.
Your tagline: Ouch; true... but still, ouch.
Socialists are nuts,true enough. This experiment though,hmmm,it says that only one of the children in each pair,the “dictator” got to decide what was fair.
Seems not fair.
I’ve been out of work for awhile, trying real hard, think I just failed in yet another interview. It sucks out there, but marxism is never an answer. It just gets in the way mostly, and cuts off so many of your chances. I’m ok for some support for disabled and unemployed, but certainly not endless welfare.
So Liberals are adult retards. That...is my personal conclusion.
POOP... I said the “R” word. Sowwy.
Definitely. People supposedly become capable of adult logic and reason at the age of 12. Unfortunately, liberals never seem to attain that level of rational thought. They perpetually believe in the tooth fairy.
Agreed.
>People supposedly become capable of adult logic and reason at the age of 12. Unfortunately, liberals never seem to attain that level of rational thought.
Which means the following would just fly over their heads:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2513906/posts
Good news everyone, my 10 year old daughter understands totally how Obama is stealing everyone’s money by spending alone even though most of his tax increases haven’t kicked in.
She gets it. She is now asking me, why doesn’t everyone?
So I shot the question back to her, her answer “They don’t want to know”
I said, bingo, I got a genius for a daughter!
What pisses off the left is the fundamental unfairness of capitalism.
In order to thrive, in a capitalist system, you have to produce something that someone else values. Leftists are far too self-centered for that to be acceptable.
The left never grew up. hahaha
This is just RICH
My 2ct’s worth-Perhaps the equal sharing in the younger subset is due to having siblings at home and parents who reprimand them when they fight over toys and goodies?
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