Does cooperation deter children from waste or inequity? A developmental study

This study aims to examine the motivations that influence children's avoidance of advantageous inequity situations, taking into account age and contextual conditions within the cultural context of Türkiye. With its cultural structure integrating both individualistic and collectivistic values, Türkiye provides a unique context for investigating the development of distributive justice preferences in childhood (Kağıtçıbaşı & Ataca, 2005). In particular, in collectivistic cultures where avoiding waste is emphasized (Zhang & Benozio, 2021), children's ways of balancing equity and waste aversion may differ. Similarly, contextual factors such as how resources are acquired -through cooperation or parallel works- can influence children's distributive justice behavior (Hamann et al., 2011). Given the high sensitivity to social repercussions in Turkish culture (Cross et al., 2013), children are likely to consider both the method of resource acquisition and whether resources are wasted when making sharing decisions. The present thesis employs a 2 (resource acquisition method: cooperation & parallel) × 2 (waste condition: wasted & not wasted) × 3 [age group: 4–5 (Mage = 4.98, SD = .373, N = 130); 6–8 (Mage = 7.35, SD = .705, N = 136); 9–10 (Mage = 9.30, SD =.462, N = 141)] between-subjects experimental design to examine children's advantageous inequity aversion (AIA) behaviors. The dependent variable is the AIA score calculated according to the participants' reactions to inequity distributions that give them an advantage. A high AIA score indicates rejection of such an advantageous unfair distribution, while a low score reflects its acceptance. Findings revealed that children were more likely to accept resources under equal distribution conditions. In contrast, their AIA scores varied by age and waste condition in situations of advantageous unfairness. Children displayed more AIA behavior when the resources were not wasted, and the 9-10 age group showed significantly higher AIA scores under these conditions. Although the resource acquisition method alone did not yield a significant effect, it did interact with age; particularly under cooperative conditions, children in the 6-8 and 9-10 age groups demonstrated higher AIA scores compared to those in the 4-5 age group. This study shows that children's sharing decisions are not only sensitive to how resources are obtained and to developmental factors but also to sociocultural norms such as waste, which may alter expected developmental trajectories. Moreover, it contributes to the literature as the first experimental developmental study to investigate the interaction between cooperation and waste avoidance motivations from a developmental perspective.