Honesty-humility and dictator and ultimatum game-giving in children

Journal Pre-proofs Honesty-Humility and Dictator and Ultimatum Game-Giving in Children Katharina Allgaier, Karolina A. Scigala, Ulrich Trautwein, Benjamin E. Hilbig, Ingo Zettler PII: DOI: Reference:

S0092-6566(18)30220-4 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2019.103907 YJRPE 103907

To appear in:

Journal of Research in Personality

Received Date: Revised Date: Accepted Date:

27 August 2018 29 November 2019 2 December 2019

Please cite this article as: Allgaier, K., Scigala, K.A., Trautwein, U., Hilbig, B.E., Zettler, I., Honesty-Humility and Dictator and Ultimatum Game-Giving in Children, Journal of Research in Personality (2019), doi: https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2019.103907

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Honesty-Humility and Dictator and Ultimatum Game-Giving in Children

Katharina Allgaier Hector Research Institute of Education Sciences and Psychology, University of Tübingen, Germany LEAD Research Network, University of Tübingen, Germany Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, University of Tübingen, Germany

Karolina A. Scigala Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Ulrich Trautwein Hector Research Institute of Education Sciences and Psychology, University of Tübingen, Germany LEAD Research Network, University of Tübingen, Germany

Benjamin E. Hilbig Cognitive Psychology Lab, Department of Psychology, University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany

Ingo Zettler Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen, Germany

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Author information Correspondence concerning this article should be directed to Katharina Allgaier, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, University of Tübingen; Osianderstraße 14-16, 72076 Tübingen, Germany. Email: [email protected].

Acknowledgements We thank Luisa Hartmann, Katja Ludwig, and Nele Usslepp for their help in conducting the experiment. We thank the LEAD Research Network, the Baden-Württemberg Foundation and the Carlsberg Foundation. The first author was a doctoral student of the LEAD Research Network [GSC 1028] which is funded by the Excellence Initiative of the German federal and state governments. This research project was funded by an intramural funding of the LEAD Research Network and a grant from the Baden-Württemberg Foundation to the last author. The preparation of this manuscript was also funded by a grant from the Carlsberg Foundation (CF160444) to the last author. Data, analysis scripts, and supplemental results are available in the Open

Science Framework (https://osf.io/s3bmw/?view_only=7abec3d7680444afa71ed82be2a4678e). The study was not preregistered.

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Honesty-Humility and Dictator and Ultimatum Game-Giving in Children

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Abstract Fairness can be affected by personality traits, situational factors, and person-situation interactions. Based on studies with adult samples, the present study investigated elementary school children’s (N = 164) social behavior in versions of the Dictator and the Ultimatum Game with actual incentives. Importantly, the Ultimatum, but not the Dictator Game includes the fear of retaliation for unfair allocation offers. The results show predictive power of the situation and the personality dimension Honesty-Humility, but not their interaction. Children offered more candies in the Ultimatum Game than in the Dictator Game, and, in general, children higher in Honesty-Humility offered more candies than children lower in Honesty-Humility.

Keywords: Dictator Game; Ultimatum Game; social behavior; Honesty-Humility; elementary school children

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Honesty-Humility and Dictator and Ultimatum Game Giving in Children 1. Introduction Prosocial behavior including fairness—in the sense of balancing self- and other-interests (Shaw et al., 2014; Van Dijk & Vermunt, 2000)—is crucial for the functioning of dyads, groups, and societies at large. Already for children and adolescents, studies have identified situational (e.g., cultural or parental; French et al., 2011; Newton, Laible, Carlo, Steele, & McGinley, 2014) and dispositional (e.g., emotion regulation or being empathetic; Carlo et al., 2012; Laible, Carlo, Panfile, Eye, & Parker, 2010) factors contributing to prosocial behavior (for a review, see Eisenberg, Spinrad, & Knafo-Noam, 2015), as well as diverse desirable outcomes associated with such behavior, e.g. better social integration, school success, and less psychopathology (Bandura, Pastorelli, Barbaranelli, & Caprara, 1999; Caprara, Barbaranelli, Pastorelli, Bandura, & Zimbardo, 2000; Wentzel, 1993). Based upon corresponding theorizing and empirical findings, we herein consider the role of a situational and a personal factor, both independently and in interaction, for children’s fairness. Specifically, we investigate whether elementary school children’s fairness—in terms of behavior in the Dictator Game (indicating unconditional fairness) and in the Ultimatum Game (indicating strategic fairness; Camerer, 2003)—is affected by the structural difference between the two games, by children’s levels in the basic personality dimension Honesty-Humility (Liu, Zettler, & Hilbig, 2016), and by the interaction between the two. Our study thus conceptually replicates and extends previous studies linking Honesty-Humility to decision-making in economic games (e.g., Hilbig, Thielmann, Hepp, Klein, & Zettler, 2015; Zhao, Ferguson, Smillie, 2017), and the study by Hilbig and Zettler (2009) in particular, and extends this body of research to children.

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1.1. Fairness in Economic Games Economic games allow for investigating fairness in a straightforward manner under experimental conditions (Freedman & Flanagan, 2017). Two of the most widely-used distribution games are the Dictator Game and the Ultimatum Game (Forsythe, Horowitz, Savin, & Sefton, 1994). In the Dictator Game, an allocator (dictator) distributes a valuable endowment between themselves and the recipient. The recipient has no power but must accept the distribution. In the Ultimatum Game, the allocator (or proposer) makes an offer to the recipient on how to distribute a valuable endowment between the two. The recipient can accept the offer (the distribution is realized as proposed) or reject it in which case the endowment is lost and neither party receives anything (Güth, Schmittberger, & Schwarze, 1982; Suleiman, 1996). Given these game structures, distributions in the Dictator Game are considered a measure of unconditional fairness, i.e. the relative weight of self- versus other-interests. In the Ultimatum Game, by comparison, the allocator can anticipate that too low offers will trigger retaliation by the recipient, so that the offer additionally reflects some strategic considerations (driven by beliefs of what is the minimum offer the recipient will accept) beyond unconditional fairness. In effect, the two games differ in the recipient’s power to retaliate (Suleiman, 1996). Correspondingly, in normal adult samples, dictators share about 30% of their endowment, whereas Ultimatum proposers offer 40 to 50% (Camerer, 2003; Engel, 2011; Gummerum, Keller, Takezawa, & Mata, 2008; Murnighan & Saxon, 1998). Nonetheless, there is also clear evidence that both games reflect individual differences in fairness—especially given their clear links with corresponding personality traits such as Honesty-Humility, altruism, concern for others, or inequality aversion (for a recent meta-analysis see Thielmann, Spadaro, & Balliet, 2019).

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Children’s Fairness in Economic Games Variants of the Dictator and Ultimatum games have also been used in research with

children and adolescents using candies, stickers or the like as endowments (e.g., Benenson, Pascoe, & Radmore, 2007; Murnighan & Saxon, 1998). Corresponding research suggests that already pre-school children perceive an equal split as being fair (Wittig, Jensen, & Tomasello, 2013). Moreover, research has found that an aversion to inequality, as well as the tendency to invest personal costs to avoid unfairness, develops between the ages of 3 and 8 years, indicating a growing interest towards (unconditional) fairness for children in this period (Benenson et al., 2007; Fehr, Bernhard, & Rockenbach, 2008; Shaw et al., 2014). The latter conclusion mirrors research findings beyond economic games on the development of prosocial behavior in children (for a review, see Eisenberg et al., 2015). Results of a meta-analysis by Fabes and Eisenberg (1998), for instance, indicate that especially school-age children show more prosocial behavior— encompassing, for instance, fair behavior in the sense of donating, helping, and sharing—than do children before entering school. Beyond increasing fairness, children also exhibit more strategic behavior over time. Shaw et al. (2014), for instance, showed for 6- to 11-year olds that older children more often tended to choose a fair procedure (namely, flipping a coin) to assign outcomes to themselves and another child but then (after the appearance of being fair) tended to lie more to their advantage about the result of the coin flip. This finding is well in line with research on children’s behavior in the Dictator and the Ultimatum games indicating that children aged between 8 and 10 start to make systematically larger offers in the Ultimatum Game as compared to the Dictator Game (Leman, Keller, Takezawa, & Gummerum, 2009). Overall, fairness and strategic concerns are clearly observable by at the end of elementary school which is why the corresponding age-range has

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been described as especially important for understanding the development of fairness (Murnighan & Saxon, 1998). Besides the relations between age and social behavior, (more) stable characteristics such as gender (girls tend to give more), socio-economic background (children with a higher socioeconomic status tend to give more), and personality characteristics (such as social generosity) have also been linked to children’s and adolescents’ fairness in economic games (e.g., Benenson et al., 2007; Eckel et al., 2011; Harbaugh, Krause, & Liday, 2002). 1.3.

Honesty-Humility and Fairness Honesty-Humility is a basic personality dimension in the HEXACO Model of Personality

(Ashton & Lee, 2007) which is based on lexical studies (e.g., Ashton et al., 2004). Roughly speaking, three HEXACO dimensions (Conscientiousness, Extraversion, and Openness to Experience) conceptually mirror three Big Five dimensions, whereas two HEXACO dimensions (Agreeableness versus Anger and Emotionality) represent rotated variants of Big Five Agreeableness and Neuroticism, respectively (e.g., Ashton, Lee, & De Vries, 2014). The most obvious distinction between the HEXACO and the Big Five model, however, is the addition of the personality dimension Honesty-Humility in the former. Honesty-Humility is defined as the “tendency to be fair and genuine in dealing with others, in the sense of cooperating with others, even when [emphasis added] one might exploit them without suffering retaliation“ (Ashton & Lee, 2007, p. 156) and thus reflects (unconditional) fairness whereas Agreeableness reflects forgiveness (Hilbig, Thielmann, Klein, & Henninger, 2016; Hilbig, Zettler, Leist, & Heydasch, 2013). As such, the two are complimentary aspects of reciprocal altruism (Ashton & Lee, 2007; Ashton et al., 2014), in turn explaining their substantial correlation (within self-ratings, disattenuated estimate p̑ = .42, k =

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min. 309, N = min. 243,066 in the meta-analysis by Moshagen, Thielmann, Hilbig, & Zettler, 2019). Links between Honesty-Humility and Big Five Agreeableness can differ (quite substantially), depending on the Big Five measurement used (e.g., Ashton, Lee, & Visser, 2019; Hilbig, Moshagen, & Zettler, 2016; Lee & Ashton, 2019). Honesty-Humility also shows some moderate correlation with Conscientiousness (within self-ratings, disattenuated estimate p̑ = .21, k = min. 309, N = min. 243,066 in the meta-analysis by Moshagen et al., 2019), arguably driven by an overlap on some—but not all—self-control tendencies (e.g., De Vries & Van Gelder, 2013). In line with its definition and conceptualization, Honesty-Humility has been linked to many important outcomes in the realm of fairness versus exploitation, including in diverse economic games (for recent meta-analyses, see Thielmann et al., 2019; Zettler, Thielmann, Hilbig, & Moshagen, 2019), although almost exclusively in adult samples. Although some studies have investigated the link between adolescents’ Honesty-Humility and (anti)social behavior—e.g. bullying (e.g., Allgaier, Zettler, Wagner, Püttmann, & Trautwein, 2015; Baiocco et al., 2017; Book, Volk, & Hosker, 2012; Farrell, Della Cioppa, Volk, & Book, 2014; Farrell, Provenzano, Dane, Marini, & Volk, 2017; Volk, Schiralli, Xia, Zhao, & Dane, 2018)—studies investigating the relation between Honesty-Humility and fairness among children are completely missing. Of note, empirical results have also consistently indicated interaction patterns between situational factors and Honesty-Humility in line with the description that individuals high in Honesty-Humility act in a fair manner even if they could exploit others (Ashton & Lee, 2007) whereas those low in Honesty-Humility condition their fairness on the possibility of punishment or retaliation and thus behave more strategically (Hilbig & Zettler, 2009; Hilbig, Zettler, &

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Heydasch, 2012; Zettler, Hilbig, & Heydasch, 2013)—a finding that is not limited to economic games but also appeared in several questionnaire-based studies (Chirumbolo, 2014; Wiltshire, Bourdage, & Lee, 2014; Zettler & Hilbig, 2010) including a vignette-study with middle school students (Allgaier et al., 2015). In the present study, we examine this reasoning in elementary school children in third and fourth grade, thus focusing on this crucial age range concerning the development of prosocial behavior. 1.4.

The Present Investigation In essence, the study provides a conceptual replication of an experiment by Hilbig and

Zettler (2009)—who investigated the links between Honesty-Humility and giving in the Dictator and Ultimatum Game, respectively—with third and fourth grade schoolchildren (aged around 9 years on average) rather than adults. As outlined above, we consider it important to examine this age group, because the developmental stage of these children is characterized by both fairness and strategic considerations (Murnighan & Saxon, 1998; Shaw et al., 2014). Note that there are further procedural differences in addition to the different age group between our study and the one described by Hilbig and Zettler (2009). For instance, we use a between-subject design (rather than a within-subject design), we use actual incentives (as opposed to hypothetical endowments), and we link observer (namely, parent) ratings of Honesty-Humility (as opposed to self-reports) to the behavior in the Dictator and Ultimatum games. Based on the structure of the games, the definition of Honesty-Humility, and prior findings we predict the following: First, children offer more rewards (in our case: chewy candies) in the Ultimatum Game than in the Dictator Game, reflecting a main effect of different situations and thus strategic behavior beyond unconditional fairness (Hypothesis 1). Second, children higher in Honesty-Humility offer more rewards in both games than do children lower in

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Honesty-Humility, thus reflecting a main effect of personality (Hypothesis 2). Finally, we predict that personality (Honesty-Humility) interacts with the situational differences (Dictator versus Ultimatum Game) such that children higher in Honesty-Humility offer similarly high amounts of chewy candies in both games whereas children lower in Honesty-Humility strategically condition their fairness on the potential for retaliation and thus offer higher amounts of chewy candies in the Ultimatum Game than in the Dictator Game (Hypothesis 3). 2. Methods 2.1.

Procedure and Participants We recruited children from 13 day-care institutions for elementary school children in a

southern German state. Informed consent was obtained from the school administrations, the schools, and the day-care directors. Furthermore, parents were asked for informed consent to their child’s participation at the same time as they received information about the study and a questionnaire aiming to assess their child’s personality (including Honesty-Humility, see below). Overall, N = 164 children (54% female) were included in the study. Six further children participated in the experiment but were excluded from the analyses: Three children suspected information about the experiment beforehand, one child was not allowed to eat any candies at all, and two parents’ questionnaires were not filled out properly. The children included in the analyses were almost equally frequently third (49%) and fourth graders (51%). The mean age was 8.84 years (SD = 0.77, range 7 to 11 years). We protected children’s anonymity and at the same time made it possible to link their behavior in the experiment to their parents’ ratings in the questionnaire by a pseudonymization via animal stickers. More specifically, the parents handed over a big envelope with two smaller envelopes. In one of the smaller envelopes, there was the consent/permission form (including the name of the child). In the other envelope, there was the

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completed questionnaire (without the name). Before the experiment started, we checked whether each child was allowed to participate, and, if so, we placed a specific animal sticker on the envelope with the questionnaire, which was also placed on a little card carried by the child during the experiment. We then strictly separated the consent/permission from the questionnaire and all other information. We conducted a power analysis to determine the effect size we had sufficient power to detect given the achieved sample size. We used the SIMR R package aimed specifically at conducting power analysis for generalized linear mixed models using a Monte Carlo simulation (Green & MacLeod, 2016). We conducted a separate simulation for each hypothesis assuming α = .05, using 1,000 replications, and aiming to achieve power of at least .80 (ranging from .80 to .90).1 We computed the power simulations for three random intercept models including either: type of the game (Hypothesis 1), Honesty-Humility, controlling for the type of the game (Hypothesis 2), or the interaction between the two (Hypothesis 3) as fixed factors. All models included the day-care institution that children came from as a random intercept. We found that, given the obtained sample size, we had statistical power of approximately .80 to detect a smallto-medium effect of f2 = 0.05 in each hypothesis. It should be noted that the main fixed effect of condition in the power simulation for Hypothesis 2, and that the main fixed effects of condition and Honesty-Humility in the power simulation for Hypothesis 3 were assumed to be the same as found in the obtained data. Children from the same day-care institution took part in the experiment on the same day. The German wording of the instruction can be found in the Open Science framework (masked for review; https://osf.io/s3bmw/?view_only=7abec3d7680444afa71ed82be2a4678e). An

Because the effect size in each simulation was determined by trial and error to achieve statistical power of approximately .80, we could not achieve exactly the same power for each model. 1

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English translation is available on request from the first author. All participating children stayed in a room of the day-care institution with one research assistant. Separately, children entered an extra room where another research assistant asked the child questions about their age, class, hungriness, fondness for chewy candies (we used a well-known German brand of chewy candies)2 and whether the child knew anything about the upcoming study. The child then completed one of the two games. The research assistants were blind concerning the hypotheses of the study. The assignment to the game was randomized for each child beforehand and resulted in 78 children playing the Dictator Game and 86 children playing the Ultimatum Game. The children were introduced to the game and asked to distribute ten chewy candies between themselves and another (unknown) child. It was highlighted to the children that neither other children nor the school or day-care staff would know about their decision. In the Dictator Game version, children were told that they alone could decide about the distribution of the ten chewy candies (and the other child had to accept whatever they got). In the Ultimatum Game version, children were told that they could make a distribution offer for the ten chewy candies as they liked. If the other child rejected the distribution, however, nobody—i.e., neither the other child nor themselves—would receive any chewy candies. Each child then distributed the ten chewy candies into two envelopes, one with the inscription “me” and one with the inscription “other child”. Beforehand, the research assistant turned away as to signal clearly that the decision would remain anonymous. Immediately after their distributions, we informed children that the other child did not actually exist and they would receive all ten chewy candies, as well as a little toy. Thus, we used deception, but resolved it as soon as possible (namely, immediately after the decision-making

16 children stated that they did not like chewy candies or were not allowed to eat them. For these children, chocolates were used in the experiment. 2

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process). The decision to conduct the study with a non-existing other child and thus briefly relying on deception was based on a) several discussions with school principals and teachers and b) experiences in a pilot study with 24 children who were asked about their understanding of the tasks and reasons for their allocations. Specifically, the alternative option, namely, a setup without deception in which each child would have played a version of the game with an existing other child, would have resulted in unequal payouts, equivalent to the actual allocations in the games. Consequently, the existing “other” child could have received nothing or it could have refused to accept the offer in the Ultimatum Game so that both children in the dyad would not have received any candies at all. Necessarily, this approach would have resulted in an unequal number of chewy candies for the participating children within one day-care institution, and, thus, arguably some envy between children. Furthermore, children within a day-care institution (at least, the other child in a dyad) would likely have become aware of other children’s actual payoffs, undermining anonymity. In thoroughly discussing the advantages and disadvantages of each approach (non-existing versus existing other child) not only within our research group, but also with school principals and teachers, we thus opted for the design with the non-existing child involving brief deception, which was considered to be less problematic overall (variants of deception have also been considered acceptable in previous research with children in the light of the study design, e.g., Salali, Juda, & Henrich, 2015). The design was approved by both the ethics committee of our faculty and the responsible school municipality. 2.2.

Measures Honesty-Humility. In order to assess Honesty-Humility, a questionnaire was used that had

specifically been developed for the assessment of the HEXACO personality dimensions of elementary school children (Allgaier, Zettler, Göllner, Hilbig, & Trautwein, 2013). The

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questionnaire asks parents to rate their child’s personality on ten items per trait. The answer format of the questionnaire is a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). A representative item of Honesty-Humility is “My child is nice to other kids, so as to receive gifts from them” (reverse coded). Cronbach’s Alpha was .79 in this sample. Importantly, it should be noted that the assessment of personality was separate from the assessment of the prosocial behavior, not only by the source of the data (parents versus observations of children’s actual behavior), but also in time (parents completed the questionnaire prior to the assessments in the day-care institutions). The very few instances of missing questionnaire values (0.84% of all items) were substituted with the overall mean. 2.3.

Analyses Because children came from 13 different day-cares, we used multilevel models in which

we clustered children within day-cares. This type of analysis accounts for the fact that the observations within any one day-care may not be independent of each other (e.g., children in some day-cares may behave more fairly than children in other day-cares), and hence traditional regression models, which assume such independence, may be inappropriate (Nezlek, 2008). Specifically, the hypotheses were tested using three random intercept models including the number of candies distributed to the other child as the dependent variable, the day-care children came from as a random factor, and either the version of the game (Dictator Game versus Ultimatum Game, Hypothesis 1), Honesty-Humility, controlling for the version of the game (Hypothesis 2), or the interaction between Honesty-Humility and the version of the game (Hypothesis 3), as fixed factors.3 The interaction between Honesty-Humility and the version of

In order to improve the overall fit of the models to the assumptions required to perform multilevel analyses (see Finch, Bolin, & Kelley, 2014), we performed a Box-Cox transformation of the dependent variable (Osborne, 2010). However, since the results with and without the transformation resulted in conceptually identical findings (see 3

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the game was included as a multiplicative term of the two variables. Honesty-Humility was centered to the sample mean. Furthermore, because we found no statistically significant difference in fairness between third- and fourth-graders (t(152.39) = -0.54, p = .59), we analyzed the results from both grades together (for separate analyses on third and fourth graders, see Tables S1 and S2 in the Supplemental Material). All analyses were conducted in the R environment (R Core Team, 2017). Data, analysis scripts, and supplemental results are available in the Open Science Framework (masked for review; https://osf.io/s3bmw/?view_only=7abec3d7680444afa71ed82be2a4678e). 3. Results In order to examine the extent to which the dependent variable, i.e., the distribution of candies, varied across different day-care institutions, we first calculated the intraclass correlation (ICC) for the unconditional means model, i.e., a model that includes only the random intercept for day-care institutions without any fixed factors (Bliese, 2013). We found that only 2% of variance in fairness was a function of the day cares to which the children belonged (ICC = .02), which is not significantly different from zero (p = .625). However, despite a statistically nonsignificant ICC, we retained the use multilevel modelling, following Nezlek (2008). As expected, the number of distributed chewy candies differed between the two versions of the game. In the Dictator Game, the children allocated M = 4.09 (SD = 1.59) of the 10 chewy candies to the other child. In the Ultimatum Game, they offered M = 5.01 (SD = 0.64) chewy candies, which is a significant difference (β = 0.36, 95% CI: [0.22; 0.51], p < .001, R2 = 0.13, 95% CI: [0.05; 0.24]), thus supporting Hypothesis 1. This difference in the distribution of

Supplemental Material, Tables S3-S5), we report the results without the transformation in order to facilitate the interpretation of the results.

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candies to another child (approximately 40% in the Dictator Game and 50% in the Ultimatum Game) is in line with previous findings on third graders which have shown that children offered 36% of their candies in the Dictator Game (Gummerum et al., 2008), and 50% of their endowment4 in the Ultimatum Game (Murnighan & Saxon, 1998). Figure 1 shows a histogram presenting the distribution of candy allocations to another child across the two games. The mode of distribution in both games was the equal split (i.e., 5 chewy candies). In the Ultimatum Game 75 percent of the children and in the Dictator Game 50 percent of the children chose the equal split which is described as fair distribution in the literature (Güroğlu, Van Den Bos, & Crone, 2009; Takezawa, Gummerum, & Keller, 2006). Some children (14% in the Ultimatum Game, 5% in the Dictator Game) behaved very generously. They made so-called hyper-fair decisions, which means, they gave more chewy candies to the other child than they retained for themselves (Güroğlu et al., 2009; Takezawa et al., 2006). These results fit well into the result patterns of previous studies, including ones with third graders (Gummerum et al., 2008; Murnighan & Saxon, 1998). Hypothesis 2 refers to an association between trait Honesty-Humility and prosocial behavior. Before investigating this, we analyzed all correlations between the HEXACO traits and the distribution offers. Table 1 shows the results, indicating that only Honesty-Humility correlates significantly with the candy offer (r = .20; p = .013). Furthermore, we found that (controlling for the factor game), Honesty-Humility positively predicted the allocated number of chewy candies (β = 0.18, 95% CI: [0.04; 0.32], p = .014, R2 = 0.04, 95% CI: [0.00; 0.11]) indicating that children higher in Honesty-Humility were more prosocial, thus supporting Hypothesis 2.

More specifically, children offered 50% of their endowment when it consisted of candies, but only 36% when it consisted of money (Murnighan & Saxon, 1998). 4

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As Table 2 further shows, a similar pattern was found for Agreeableness (ß = .17, 95% CI: [0.02; 0.31], p = .023, R2 = 0.03, 95% CI: [0.00; 0.10]) but not for any other trait. However, in an exploratory model involving Honesty-Humility and Agreeableness (but not the Game condition), it was only Honesty-Humility that remained significantly related to the distribution of candy (β = 0.18, 95% CI: [0.02; 0.35], p = .032, R2 = 0.03, 95% CI: [0.00; 0.10]), whereas Agreeableness bears no significant effect (β = 0.03, 95% CI: [-0.13; 0.20], p = .712, R2 = 0.00, 95% CI: [0.00; 0.03]). According to Hypothesis 3, the relation between Honesty-Humility and the behavior in the Dictator Game was expected to be stronger than the relation with behavior in the Ultimatum Game. However, we did not obtain a significant interaction (β = -0.16, 95% CI: [-0.36; 0.04], p = .115, R2 = 0.02, 95% CI: [0.00; 0.07]). 4. Discussion The present study reveals that a notable proportion of third- and fourth graders (around 9 years on average) makes at least fair distributions in economic games. The findings can be seen as further support for a substantial fairness motivation of children by the end of elementary school. Some children (14% in the Ultimatum Game and 5% in the Dictator Game) made even hyper-fair decisions in the sense that they gave more candies to the other child than they kept for themselves. With regard to the Ultimatum Game this may be due to beliefs such as the expectation that the other child expects such a generous gift. An explanation for hyperfairness in the Dictator Game, however, requires concepts beyond fairness and strategy, e.g. true altruism. Further studies might thus focus on children that make hyper-fair decisions in more detail, for instance by asking them about the reasons for their decisions.

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Nonetheless, although many children opted for a fair distribution, there were also substantial differences both depending on the structural aspects of the administered games (i.e., more fairness in the Ultimatum Game than in the Dictator Game) and on trait differences across children (more fairness with increasing Honesty-Humility). The difference between games can be seen as further support for strategic thinking of at least some children in this age range, whereas the association with Honesty-Humility confirms an influence of (dispositional) unconditional fairness. Taken together, the study establishes that the two motives of prosocial behavior— namely, fairness and strategy (represented via the Dictator and Ultimatum Game, respectively)— can be linked to the personality dimension of Honesty-Humility of elementary school-age children already. Thus, children’s levels in Honesty-Humility are informative for their social behavior overall. Notably, controlling for the type of the game (and only then), a similar finding was observed for the personality dimension of Agreeableness. Once both Honesty-Humility and Agreeableness were included in the analyses, only Honesty-Humility (but not Agreeableness) was related to prosocial behavior, indicating that Honesty-Humility is informative over and above Agreeableness but not vice versa. Importantly, though, differentiations between fairness and strategy could not be linked to Honesty-Humility in this study given that the expected interaction failed to reach a conventional level of significance. Thus, unlike the study with an adult sample by Hilbig and Zettler (2009), the present study could not confirm what is predicted by the definition of Honesty-Humility (Ashton & Lee, 2007). Given this definition and the fact that other studies have found such an interaction effect

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with different methods (e.g., Wiltshire et al., 2014), we can only speculate about the reasons for the non-significant result we obtained. One potential explanation concerns the sample size. Our sample size was large enough to detect small-to-medium effects of the factors of interest (i.e., Honesty-Humility, type of the game, interaction between the two). This range is well in line with effect sizes found in the previous literature. Specifically, other studies linking Honesty-Humility to fairness in social dilemmas have usually found small-to-medium effect sizes of the relation in question (e.g., Hilbig et al., 2012; Hilbig, Zettler, Moshagen, & Heydasch, 2013; Ruch, Bruntsch, & Wagner, 2017). Furthermore, in the study by Hilbig and Zettler (2009) which tested the interaction between Honesty-Humility and type of the game (the Ultimatum versus the Dictator game) in adults, the effects of Honesty-Humility (f2 = .07), condition (f2 = .07), and the interaction between the two (f2 = .04) on fairness were small-to-medium. This provides the most direct justification for our sample size, given that Hilbig and Zettler (2009) investigated the same relation as this study, although on an adult sample. It should be noted, however, that the effect size for the interaction effect found in our study was smaller than that found in the study by Hilbig and Zettler (2009), so future studies might investigate this assumed effect based on a more conservative power estimation and, thus, arguably a larger sample size. Another potential explanation for our non-significant result concerning the interaction (apart from the possibility that this theorizing does not hold, at least not for samples in this age group) is that parents’ observational reports of children’s Honesty-Humility may, to some degree, reflect children’s inclination to act more fairly in the context of their parents and/or that parents have a biased view of their children’s behavior across situations. Future studies might

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thus combine different assessments of a child’s level in Honesty-Humility and other personality dimensions. In contrast to these limitations, one strength of the present study is the measurement of actual behavior (in terms of observations of participants’ behavior) as a dependent variable (Baumeister, Vohs, & Funder, 2007; King, 2010). Together with the application of parents’ reports at an earlier time-point, the present study thus avoids biases arising from common sources or reported (instead of actual) behavior only. However, future studies might also consider measuring children’s fairness differently, for instance via judging vignettes, to complement the behavioral approach of this study. The vignettes might describe situations that children face in their everyday life and that are thus less abstract than allocating given candies between oneself and an unknown child. Vignette approaches might also allow for a more straightforward investigation of contrasting active and reactive cooperation. Corresponding studies might thus also shed light on the degree to which Honesty-Humility and Agreeableness have distinguishable effects (for children). Overall, this study shows that both strategic and fairness-related considerations play a role when children make decisions. At the same time, thorough developmental studies on when, how, and to which degree children’s strategic considerations evolve are missing, and hopefully picked up in the future.

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HONESTY-HUMILITY AND FAIRNESS IN CHILDREN

Figure 1. Frequency distribution of candies allocated to another child. Values on the x-axis represent the number of candies given.

31

HONESTY-HUMILITY AND FAIRNESS IN CHILDREN

32

Table 1 Means, standard deviations, and correlations with confidence intervals Variable 1. Honesty-Humility 2. Emotionality

M

SD

1

4.00

0.63

.79

3.19

0.66

-.04

2

3

4

5

6

.74

[-.19, .11]

3. Extraversion 4. Agreeableness vs. Anger

4.00 3.27

0.53 0.64

.19*

.02

[.03, .33]

[-.13, .17]

.40** [.26, .52]

5. Conscientiousness 6. Openness to Experience 7. Candies offered

3.63 3.39 4.57

0.78 0.68 1.27

-.07 [-.22, .09]

.76 .26**

.80

[.12, .40]

.35**

.19*

.30**

.27**

[.21, .48]

[.04, .34]

[.15, .43]

[.12, .40]

.86

.11

.13

.19*

.09

.22**

[-.04, .26]

[-.02, .28]

[.04, .34]

[-.06, .24]

[.06, .36]

.20*

.00

.10

.10

.06

[.04, .34]

[-.15, .15]

[-.06, .25]

[-.05, .25]

[-.09, .21]

.77 -.02 [-.17, .13]

Note. M and SD are used to represent mean and standard deviation, respectively. Values in square brackets indicate the 95% confidence interval for each correlation. Cronbach’s alpha values are presented on the leading diagonal. N = 164, * indicates p < .05.

HONESTY-HUMILITY AND FAIRNESS IN CHILDREN ** indicates p < .01.

33

HONESTY-HUMILITY AND FAIRNESS IN CHILDREN

34

Table 2 Fixed-effects parameters when fitting separate models for each HEXACO factor controlling for condition. Variable

β

95% CI

t

Df

p value

R2

95% CI

1. Honesty-Humility

.18

[0.04; 0.32]

2.49

160.55

.014

.04

[0.00; 0.11]

2. Emotionality

-.09

[-0.23; 0.06]

-1.15

159.93

.252

.01

[0.00; 0.06]

3. Extraversion

.12

[-0.02; 0.27]

1.69

159.25

.093

.02

[0.00; 0.08]

4. Agreeableness vs. Anger

.17

[0.02; 0.31]

2.30

159.44

.023*

.03

[0.00; 0.10]

5. Conscientiousness

.05

[-0.09; 0.20]

0.76

157.24

.451

.00

[0.00; 0.04]

6. Openness to Experience

.03

[-0.11; 0.17]

0.40

154.78

.688

.00

[0.00; 0.04]

Note. Each model included a random intercept for schools, a fixed effect for a given HEXACO trait, and a fixed effect for a version of the game (Ultimatum Game = 1, Dictator Game = 0) to predict the distribution of candies given to another child. N = 164, * indicates p < .05.

HONESTY-HUMILITY AND FAIRNESS IN CHILDREN

35

Highlights for the Manuscript: “Honesty-Humility and Dictator and Ultimatum Game-Giving in Children”:





Many children account for fairness when distributing goods



Some children also take strategic considerations into account

Honesty-Humility is an important personality trait already for elementary school children’s social behavior