Meritocratic sharing is based on collaboration in 3-year-olds.

The present study investigated young preschoolers' proportional allocation of rewards in 2 different work contexts. We presented 32 pairs of 3.5-year-old peers with a collaborative task to obtain rewards by pulling ropes. In order to establish differences in work input, 1 child's rope was not immediately accessible but had to be retrieved from the apparatus by means of a specific tool, while the other child had no such additional work to do. The result of the game was that 1 individual received 1 toy and the other received 3 toys. In the Deserving condition, the working child received the 3 toys (thus work and reward matched), whereas in the Undeserving condition, the other child received the 3 toys (he or she was overpaid, and the working child was underpaid). Another 32 dyads participated in a noncollaborative, parallel work task, again in a Deserving condition and an Undeserving condition. On average, children with 3 toys shared with their partner more in the Undeserving condition than in the Deserving condition after collaboration but not in a parallel work setup. These results suggest that young children take merit into account in distributing resources at a much younger age than previously believed and that peer collaboration is an especially facilitative context for children's attention to norms of fairness. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.