Summarize Psychology Article

Short Report

Children’s Biased Evaluations of Lucky Versus Unlucky People and Their Social Groups Kristina R. Olson,1 Mahzarin R. Banaji,1 Carol S. Dweck,2 and Elizabeth S. Spelke1

1 Harvard University and

2 Stanford University

Hurricanes strike some houses and spare others, lotteries are

won and lost, and children are born into wealthy and poor

families. Rationally, there is no reason to prefer people who are

lucky to those who are unlucky. In fact, the explicit codes of

ethics by which modern societies govern themselves emphasize

neutrality or even a favoring of the least advantaged (Rawls,

1971). But rationality is not always a quality of human minds

(Simon, 1957; Tversky & Kahneman, 1974), and this is so even

when decisions involve the dimension of right versus wrong

(Banaji & Bhaskar, 2000).

Understanding how children think about other people who

experience luck or misfortune can provide a window into the

origins of attitudes and preferences toward social groups that

vary in privilege. Accordingly, we tested children’s preferences

for lucky versus unlucky individuals. Then we pushed further to

test the generalization of such preferences beyond the individ-

uals themselves to others who shared a group marker (same-

colored T-shirt).

STUDY 1

Do children show a preference for those peers who experience

randomly occurring (uncontrollable) positive rather than nega-

tive events? In Study 1, we compared evaluations of lucky versus

unlucky individuals with evaluations of individuals performing

purposeful (intentional) positive versus negative actions. Thirty-

two 5- to 7-year-old children 1

(18 female, M 5 6 years) heard

four types of scenarios involving another child: intentional and

positive (e.g., the child helped the teacher), intentional and

negative (e.g., the child told a lie to his or her mother), uncon-

trollable and positive (e.g., the child found $5 on the sidewalk),

and uncontrollable and negative (e.g., the child’s soccer game

was rained out).

The participants were read two-line vignettes about fictitious

target children, one at a time. After each one, they were asked,

‘‘How much do you like [name]?’’ Responses were made on a

6-point smile-to-frown scale anchored by a large frowning face

(really don’t like) and a large smiling face (really like). Each

child responded to 10 scenarios (out of 40 total), including at

least 1 of each type. A mean preference rating was computed for

each of the four types of scenarios for each subject.

The mean ratings differed across the types of scenarios, as

demonstrated in a one-way repeated measures analysis of

variance, F(3, 93) 5 49.18, p < .001 (see Fig. 1). Not surpris-

ingly, the children showed a preference for intentionally good

peers over intentionally bad peers, t(31) 5 11.76, prep > .99,

d 5 3.04 (Imamoglu, 1975). But they also showed a similar

preference for beneficiaries of uncontrollable good events over

victims of uncontrollable bad events, t(31) 5 3.87, prep 5 .99,

d 5 1.07. As one might expect, the children also distinguished

between intentional and uncontrollable events, showing a

preference for victims of uncontrollable bad events over

children who intentionally performed bad actions, t(31) 5 4.53,

prep > .99, d 5 1.01, but only a marginal preference for

children who intentionally performed good actions over bene-

ficiaries of uncontrollable good events, t(31) 5 1.84, prep 5 .84,

d 5 0.40.

STUDY 2

In a second experiment, we investigated whether this preference

for the lucky over the unlucky spreads to new members of groups

associated with good versus bad fortune. On each of two trials,

forty-three 5- to 7-year-old children 2

(21 female, M 5 6 years) were

introduced to members of two groups (five members each) distin-

guished by their T-shirt color and location on the computer screen

(right or left side). Three members of one group were described as

beneficiaries of uncontrollable positive events, whereas three Address correspondence to Kristina Olson, 33 Kirkland St., Cam- bridge, MA 02138, e-mail: [email protected].

1 One additional child was excluded because of inattentiveness.

2 Two additional participants were excluded because of parental interference

or limited English comprehension.

P S Y C H O L O G I C A L S C I E N C E

Volume 17—Number 10 845Copyright r 2006 Association for Psychological Science

members of the other group were described as victims of uncon-

trollable negative events. The remaining two members of each

group were described neutrally (e.g., ‘‘Charlie likes oatmeal’’).

Thus, although group membership was never explicitly mentioned,

the descriptions created a systematic yet imperfect association

between group and luck. Subjects were then introduced to two new

people, one belonging to each group, and were asked, ‘‘Who do you

like more?’’ A similar procedure was followed to introduce the

children to groups associated with intentional good versus bad

actions and then to assess the children’s liking for new people

wearing T-shirts of the colors associated with these groups.

We calculated the proportion of trials on which the children

preferred the member of the lucky or good group. We then

conducted separate chi-square goodness-of-fit tests for the un-

controllable-events and intentional-actions scenarios to deter-

mine whether the children had a significant preference for

people who appeared to belong to the good and lucky groups. 3

The children preferred new individuals who belonged to the

mostly lucky group to those who belonged to the mostly unlucky

group, w2(2, N 5 38) 5 7.68, prep 5 .92, w 5 .45. In other words, the children preferred individuals who belonged to groups with

lucky members despite the fact that (a) the group distinctions

were arbitrary (T-shirt color and screen location), (b) the groups

were never labeled as groups (e.g., ‘‘This is the blue-shirt

group’’), and (c) the children had no knowledge of the new

members besides their group membership. Most remarkably, the

effect was obtained even though group membership was not

perfectly correlated with event type. Not surprisingly, children

also preferred new individuals who belonged to the intentionally

good group to those who belonged to the intentionally bad group,

w2(2, N 5 40) 5 27.8, prep > .99, w 5 .83.

CONCLUSION

Every society is marked by social inequalities. Recognition of

the source of inequalities (often luck) might suggest favoring the

disadvantaged, as evinced by messages in holy books, theories

of justice, and the values expressed on surveys. But such ab-

stract principles of justice are less often seen in the actions of

individuals (e.g., Lerner, 1980). The two experiments reported

here show the difficulty that confronts young humans as they

make interpersonal decisions about how much they like indi-

viduals who benefit from sheer luck or experience misfortune.

Young children (a) express stronger liking for people who are

the beneficiaries of good luck compared with people who are the

victims of bad luck and (b) generalize this preference beyond the

individuals themselves to those who belong to the same group.

Because people who begin life with disadvantage are also more

likely than others to experience negative events that are beyond

their control (e.g., those most affected by hurricanes are often

the people who are the poorest), this preference for people with

privilege may further increase negativity toward the disadvan-

taged. Such preferences may, in turn, help explain the persis-

tence of social inequality.

Acknowledgments—We thank A. Reynolds for drawings used

in Study 2, Harvard Museum of Natural History for research

space, and A. Russell, C. Borras, R. Rau-Murthy, R. Ruhling,

M. Mahone, V. Loehr, P. Hayden, and R. Montana for data col-

lection. This research was supported by the Beinecke Scholar-

ship, National Science Foundation, National Institutes of

Health, and Third Millennium Foundation.

REFERENCES

Banaji, M.R., & Bhaskar, R. (2000). Implicit stereotypes and memory:

The bounded rationality of social beliefs. In D.L. Schacter &

E. Scarry (Eds.), Memory, brain and belief (pp. 139–175). Cam- bridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Imamoglu, E.O. (1975). Children’s awareness and usage of intention

cues. Child Development, 46, 39–45. Lerner, M. (1980). The belief in a just world: A fundamental delusion.

New York: Plenum.

Rawls, J. (1971). A theory of justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni- versity Press.

Simon, H. (1957). Models of man. New York: Wiley. Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty:

Heuristics and biases. Science, 185, 1124–1131.

(RECEIVED 1/3/06; REVISION ACCEPTED 3/13/06; FINAL MATERIALS RECEIVED 3/15/06)

Fig. 1. Results from Study 1: children’s rated liking of people who were targets of uncontrollable good or bad events, or perpetrators of intentional good or bad actions. Error bars indicate standard error of the mean.

3 A trial was dropped from analysis if the participant announced that his or her

choice was based on the child’s name or T-shirt color (4.4% of trials).

846 Volume 17—Number 10

Children’s Preference for the Lucky