If you have spent time with young children, you have probably noticed how deeply they are attuned to fairness: even though they sometimes struggle to share their resources, children, like adults, can be willing to pay a personal cost to punish those who treat others unfairly. Yet in the real world, inequality is pervasive; we see many examples of unequal treatment and opportunities based on social group identities or backgrounds, but people rarely protest or demand change. My research explores this gap—how people, especially children who strongly believe in fairness, come to accept a world full of inequities. Thus far I have approached this question from three main angles:
- How do children make sense of existing inequalities?
From an early age, children recognize that some people have more resources, opportunities, or social status than others. To understand these differences, they draw on the information available to them and their existing mental models of the world. My work examines the cognitive mechanisms, biases, and types of information children use to explain these structures, and how their reasoning can sometimes lead them to justify inequality. I also study the role of parents in this process. Explaining societal-level inequalities, or why one’s own family has more or less than another, to a child can be mentally and emotionally challenging, and the explanations (or silences) parents offer may be pivotal in shaping children’s views of fairness and social hierarchy.
2. Do we bear responsibility for past generations’ wrongs?
One reason why some people might have access to more resources than others could lie in history. For instance, the current members of various African nations are still seeing the effects of colonization because they lost considerable resources and human power, and conversely, various European countries benefited from resources taken during this time. There is a fierce, ongoing debate around how to address such historic transgressions. In my research I try to understand under what conditions, and starting from what age, people assign blame and responsibility to a group of people who did not commit the original transgression but nonetheless are related to it through their social ties—in other words, recognize the possibility of collective guilt. I am also interested in whether people extend this reasoning to individuals who were not born into these groups but became members later. These questions test the limits of collective guilt ascription and the boundaries of group identities that are assumed later in life.
3. Are inherited resources deserved?
Imagine you are a parent and a homeowner—a home that has belonged to your family for generations. Should your child inherit it after you pass? Now, suppose you own multiple homes—should your child pay a higher inheritance tax? And if you were a billionaire, would they have a right to your wealth regardless of their own attributes? These questions are not only personal decisions about what happens to one’s assets after death; they are also central to policy debates and competing philosophies of rights and responsibilities. In my work I examine whether, from a young age, people believe that such resources carry a special meaning that makes them feel deserved, similar to resources earned through hard work.
New and Upcoming Projects
I am expanding my research into new areas, including:
• Who belongs in STEM? How do children decide where they “fit”—in certain spaces, occupations, or fields of study? In particular, what draws children from different racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic backgrounds to (or away from) STEM careers? What cognitive processes lead them to believe there is a “good reason” why some groups (for example, women) are less represented in certain STEM fields (e.g., “maybe they’re just not interested” or “not good at it”)? And what interventions are most effective in shifting these beliefs?
• Origins of zero-sum thinking: Where do beliefs that “one person’s gain is another’s loss” (i.e., zero-sum beliefs) come from, and how do these beliefs come to show astonishing interpersonal and context-based variability and adaptability? Relatedly, are children more or less likely than adults to hold zero-sum-related beliefs, such as the win–lose bias or mercantilist ideas?
• Who deserves attention: trailblazers or pattern-matchers? How do the strength and personal relevance of a social identity stereotype shape the attention people give to stereotypical versus counter-stereotypical group members? And how might these attentional processes ultimately foster or hinder stereotype change?
