Pakistani Children’s Reasoning for Fairness Judgements; A Qualitative Study

Abstract

This study aims to contribute to the existing literature by adding a qualitative investigation into children’s reasonings for their fairness judgements. Fairness is an integral part of children’s moral development. This paper includes the qualitative part of the sequential explanatory design study aimed at children’s fairness understanding. We conducted open-ended interviews with 150 Pakistani children (3 to 6 years old) to explore their justifications for their fairness decisions. Our findings suggest that Pakistani children predominantly employed desired-based reasonings for their judgments. However, morality-based- and norm-based reasonings were also invoked by children to justify their acceptance or rejection of an attractive offer of toffees in a game-type scenario where they had to compare with three different relationships: sibling, friend, or stranger. We found that different relation dynamics did have an impact on the different justifications provided by children.