认知与发展心理学研究室知识库

人类社会中，自身利益并未受到损害的第三方个体会牺牲自我利益介入到违 反社会规范的行为中，通过惩罚违规者或帮助受害者来维护社会规范。这种付出个人代价的第三方介入行为在促进社会合作、维护社会秩序中发挥着重要作用。已有研究发现，成人实施第三方介入时会受到其与违规者或受害者之间社会关系 的影响。然而关于社会关系影响第三方介入行为的表现特点及发展过程尚不清楚，本研究通过考察儿童对他人在不同同伴关系情境中第三方介入行为的推理来回 答这个问题。具体来说，本研究探究了在不公平的资源分配情况中，第三方旁观 者与不公平行为的分配者或接收者存在不同同伴关系（好朋友、死对头或陌生人）时，不同年龄的儿童如何推理第三方的介入行为（惩罚分配者、补偿接受者、不 介入），以及公平违背类型在这个过程中的调节作用。

研究一通过行为实验考察了 6-11 岁儿童在第三方和分配者间（实验 1，N = 98）以及第三方和接收者间（实验 2，N = 96）有不同同伴关系时，儿童对第三 方介入行为的预期“你觉得他会怎么做？”和判断“你觉得他怎么做是对的？”。

对于预期问题来说，实验 1 发现，第三方与分配者之间的同伴关系影响了儿童的第三方介入预期，且影响过程受到了年龄的调节。具体来说，同伴关系 的影响从 8-9 岁开始出现，直至 10-11 岁儿童显著预期第三方会在好朋友做出不 公平分配时补偿接收者、在死对头做出不公平分配时惩罚死对头，但在陌生人 做出不公平分配时对第三方的行为没有显著预期。实验 2 发现，第三方与接收 者之间的同伴关系影响了儿童的第三方介入预期，且影响过程不随年龄变化。 6-11 岁儿童预期第三方在各个关系中都会介入，且会以补偿的方式介入，只是 介入程度有所差别：儿童预期第三方在接收者是好朋友时最多介入、接收者是 陌生人时居中、在接收者是死对头时最少介入。对于判断问题来说，实验1、2中各年龄段儿童在各个关系情境中对判断问题的回答则相对一致：6-11 岁儿童均显著认为对不公平分配进行介入、且以补偿的方式介入是正确的。

研究二进一步设置了对不同公平原则类型（平等原则、公正原则）的违反，增加了分配公平性变量（公平、不公平），并根据实验一的结果选取了受到 同伴关系影响最全面的 10-11 岁儿童考察公平违背类型如何调节儿童推理第三方介入时对同伴关系的考虑。实验 3（N = 73）和实验 4（N = 72）同样分别设 置第三方与分配者以及第三方与接收者间有不同同伴关系的情境。

对于预期问题来说，两个实验均发现公平违背类型没有影响儿童的第三方 介入预期，仅有同伴关系和分配公平性的影响。实验 3 发现：（1）当好朋友和陌生人分配不公时，儿童对第三方是否会介入均没有显著预期，但预期第三方 会对自私的死对头进行惩罚。（2）相比于公平的分配，儿童认为第三方不会更多介入自己好朋友的不公分配，但会更多介入死对头和陌生人的不公平分配。 实验 4 发现：（1）儿童预期第三方在好朋友遭遇不公平分配时会对好朋友进行 补偿、在死对头遭遇不公平分配时不会介入，但在陌生人遭遇不公平分配时对 第三方的行为没有显著预期。（2）相比于公平的分配，儿童预期第三方会更多 介入自己的好朋友和陌生人遭遇的不公平分配，更少介入死对头遭遇的不公平 分配。对于判断问题来说，实验 3 和实验 4 中儿童同样均认为对不公平分配进 行介入、且以补偿的方式介入是正确的。另外，公平违背类型影响了实验 4 中儿童对他人第三方介入行为的判断：儿童认为相比于被不平等对待，当接收者受到不公正对待时第三方更应该进行介入，并且更应该用补偿的方式介入。

两个研究的结果表明，随着年龄的增长，儿童在预期第三方介入行为时受到第三方与分配者/接收者之间关系的影响逐渐加强，但各年龄段儿童对第三方 正确行为的判断在各关系情境中较为一致。研究结果揭示了同伴关系影响儿童 推理第三方介入行为的发展规律，在理论上丰富了社会关系在影响儿童的合作、公平和道德正义概念发展中的重要作用；在实践上，可以为培养儿童积极的同伴关系和建立公正的道德观提供参考。

Humans’ cooperation has depended in part on their willingness to intervene against unfairness at personal cost, either by punishing selfish individuals or by assisting victims who have been treated unfairly. These behaviors are known as third-party intervention (TPI) and have been shown to emerge early in human ontogeny. Surprisingly, little is known about how social relationships information influence children’s TPI. While previous studies demonstrate that children’s third-party punishment behaviors show intergroup bias, as children unevenly punish selfish in group and outgroup members; to our knowledge, children’s personal relationships (i.e., peer relationships) has not been considered in previous works. Peer relationship is an important and common aspect of children’s social lives. Understanding how and when peer relationship shapes children’s TPI is vital for uncovering the developmental origin of the influence of social context on norm enforcement. In the current study, we answered this question by exploring children’s reasoning of how a third-party would and should intervene unfair resource allocation in different peer relationship contexts.

Study 1 examined how 6-11-year-old children reason about third-party intervention behaviors in peer relationship contexts, focusing on the influence of peer relationships between third-party distributors and recipients. Through Experiments 1 (N = 98) and 2 (N = 96), children’s expectations (what he would do) and judgments (what is the right thing to do) regarding third-party intervention, including compensation and punishment, were investigated.

For Expectation question, Experiment 1 found that peer relationship between third party and the selfish distributor increasingly influence children’s expectations as to whether, and how the third party would intervene as the children get older. Specifically, until 10-11-year-olds, children expected that the third-party would compensate the recipient when the distributor was a friend, but would punish the distributor when he was a disliked peer. When the distributor was a stranger, children did not show directional expectations as to whether and in what way the third party would intervene. Experiment 2 found that children consider peer relationship in a similar way across age groups when reasoning about whether a third party would intervene or not: more children expected a third party would intervene when the recipient was a friend of the third party than when the recipient was a stranger, the latter was higher than when the recipient was a peer disliked by the third party. However, children of all ages expected that the third party would intervene through compensating the recipient, no matter the peer relationship type between the third party and the recipient. Across the two studies, children’s responses to Judgment question were relatively consistent across ages and relationships. They thought intervention was the right thing to do, and thought compensation was the right way to intervene.

Study 2, focusing on 10-11-year-old children, investigated how the extent of fairness norm violation influenced children’s expectations and judgments of third-party intervention behaviors in peer contextes. Through Experiment 3 (N = 73) and Experiment 4 (N = 73), the study expanded upon the findings of Study1 by manipulating the distribution fairness (unfair, fair) and type of norm (equality and equity) violated in resource allocation.

For Expectation question, Results from Experiment 3 reveal that the type of norm violated by the distributor had no significant impact on children’s expectations, whereas allocation fairness did. Children had no significant expectations about whether a third party would intervene regardless of the distribution fairness made by the third party’s friend. Additionally, children expected the third-party punishment to a disliked peer, regardless of distribution fairness, but lacked significant expectations regarding intervention in unfair allocations by strangers. Experiment 4 found that children expected third party would compensate when his friend was unfairly treated, but would not intervene when his disliked peer was unfairly treated, and had no expectations for an unfairly treated stranger. Meanwhile, children did not expect the third party’s intervention when his friend and disliked peer received fair distributions, but expected non-intervention when a stranger received a fair distribution. For the judgment question, children in both Experiments 3 and 4 similarly believed that intervention was the right thing to do for an unfair distribution, and compensation was the right way to intervene.

Overall, the findings indicate that during middle childhood, when reasoning about third-party’s TPI in peer relationship context, children started to show the divergences between understanding of what one ought to do and expectations about what one would do. This suggests that children internalize the norms of their specific culture concerning social relationships in deciding whether and how to intervene in norm violations.