Infants make their social decisions based on fairness

Fairness informs social decision making in infancy

Understanding and interpreting fairness is thought to be a crucial component in infants’ development of morality. It has been shown that fairness develops as early as 18-months but little was known regarding the impacts this development has on the pro-social behaviours of infants. This was until Dr. Sommerville’s study looking into whether 13- and 17-month-old infants prefer interacting with an individual who they just saw distributing crackers equally to third parties or an individual who distributed the crackers unequally. Infants of both ages preferred to take a toy given by the individual who had previously acted fairly towards others, choosing them as social partners. This illustrates infants’ strategic preferences that allow them to engage in specific social behaviours through their perception and understanding of fairness.