Awareness shapes fairness: how Children’s emotion atributions reflect sensitivity to unequal treatment

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dc.abstract.enHow do children reason about fairness when transgressors receive different consequences for the same misdeed? In a pre-registered study with N = 122 participants at 6 to 9 years, we investigated how children evaluate unequal norm enforcement (punishment vs. leniency) and how they integrate a transgressor’s knowledge state about the inequality into their emotion attributions. Results showed that children revised their emotion attributions depending on whether the transgressor was aware of being treated differently. Children initially attributed happiness to an unpunished transgressor or sadness to a punished transgressor. However, they subsequently attributed mixed emotions such as guilt or sadness combined with relief to transgressors who learned about the inequality but not to transgressors who only knew about the punishment to the self. These results suggest that children reflect not only on the consequences to the individual but also on the transgressors’ knowledge about whether a meta-norm of equality has been violated.
dc.affiliationWydział w Sopocie
dc.affiliationWydział Psychologii w Sopocie
dc.contributor.authorMyślińska-Szarek, Katarzyna
dc.contributor.authorWarneken, Felix
dc.date.access2026-05-26
dc.date.accessioned2026-06-07T09:41:32Z
dc.date.available2026-06-07T09:41:32Z
dc.date.created2026-05-15
dc.date.issued2026-05-26
dc.description.accesstimeat_publication
dc.description.physical1-10
dc.description.sdgPeaceJusticeAndStrongInstitutions
dc.description.sdgQualityEducation
dc.description.versionfinal_published
dc.description.volume270
dc.identifier.doi10.1016/j.jecp.2026.106553
dc.identifier.eissn1096-0457
dc.identifier.issn0022-0965
dc.identifier.urihttps://share.swps.edu.pl/handle/swps/2387
dc.identifier.weblinkhttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022096526001050
dc.languageen
dc.pbn.affiliationpsychologia
dc.rightsClosedAccess
dc.rights.explanationArtykuł za paywallem
dc.rights.questionNo_rights
dc.share.articleOTHER
dc.swps.sciencecloudsend
dc.titleAwareness shapes fairness: how Children’s emotion atributions reflect sensitivity to unequal treatment
dc.title.journalJournal of Experimental Child Psychology
dc.typeJournalArticle
dspace.entity.typeArticle