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Children's sense of fairness is evident from as early as 3 years old
Last reviewed: 02.07.2025
From a young age, children demonstrate a keen sense of justice. They are willing to do anything to ensure that the person who is being unfair is punished accordingly, even if the child himself has to sacrifice something for this.
The sense of justice can be presented in a variety of interpretations. Some similar ideas can be seen in the behavior of chimpanzees. The only difference is that monkeys react to the presence or absence of justice if it concerns them personally. As for people, here the feeling extends to others as well.
Children as young as three years old sense and worry when one person offends another. At the same time, children's desire is directed not so much at punishing the one who has shown injustice, but at helping the victim.
And yet, is it necessary or not to restore justice? After all, the person who is the offender must be punished - at least so that "others would learn a lesson". In some cases, for justice to prevail, it is necessary to sacrifice something. At what age is a child ready to make such sacrifices? This is quite difficult to understand, but scientists representing the University of New York have noted that children, starting from 3 or 6 years old, are already ready to sacrifice for the sake of justice.
More than two hundred children aged 3-6 took part in the study. All of these children were visitors to the city children's museum. The participants were led into a room with a spiral slide: they were allowed to slide down it. The children began to have fun, and after a while they were shown footage of a little girl who was maliciously damaging and tearing someone else's craft. The children were told that this bad girl would soon come to them to slide down the slide. Then the participants were given the following options: write a sign on the slide with the word "closed" or "open". If the slide was supposed to be open, this meant that everyone would be able to slide down it, including the naughty little girl. And the word "closed" determined that no one would slide down it. It turns out that each child had the opportunity to punish another child for damaging someone else's craft by infringing on their own interests.
It turned out that every second child expressed a willingness to sacrifice their entertainment. Among these children were both three-year-old and six-year-old participants.
After this, the experts decided to determine which factor influences children's desire to punish the guilty. The children were divided into groups: some of them were told that the girl was the same as them and even belonged to their group. Other children were told that the girl was a stranger to them. The third category of children were given "special powers" in decision-making, having a sheriff's badge hung on their chests.
It turned out that children were more inclined to punish "strangers", and the "forgiveness" option was more often applied to their own. But the additional "sheriff's power" changed everything: their own were more likely to come into play. The researchers explained this by the fact that a person endowed with power feels more responsible for "his" people, and he will do everything so that "his" do not offend each other.
Details of the study are published at psycnet.apa.org/record/2019-26829-001?doi=1