Khaberni - A recent study has shown that children's attitudes towards bribery is not innate but gradually develops as they age.
According to the results published in the British journal "Proceedings of the Royal Society B," young children do not naturally tend to reject bribery; instead, this refusal is associated with their cognitive development.
A research team led by Bolivar Reyes-Jacquez of the University of New Hampshire in the US, after experiments involving hundreds of children, noted that cognitive development plays a pivotal role in this context.
Corruption remains a significant problem worldwide. But when is it determined whether someone is corrupt? And what role do age and culture generally play in this?
To closely investigate the development of bribery behavior during childhood, researchers tested about 700 children from Norway, Italy, Japan, and the United States, ranging in age from 3 to 11 years.
In the first experiment, the children acted as jurors in a drawing contest. They were presented with two drawings: one clearly better in quality, while the other was accompanied by a bribery offer in the form of a gift card worth about ten euros.
The young jurors were asked two questions: Should the gift be kept or refused? And which of the two drawings should win - the better one objectively or the one associated with a financial grant?
The research team wrote, "Regarding the issue of bribery, age alone was the only factor that allowed predicting the children's decisions." Younger children accepted the gift at a higher rate across different cultures, while older children tended to refuse it. When choosing the contest winner, an increasing number of older children chose the better drawing instead of the one associated with money, even though 85% of children older than 9 years chose the better drawing.
Older children, in particular, recognized the manipulative nature of the gift. About three-quarters of them, when asked, indicated that the gift-giver aimed to influence and "wanted to win." Younger children often saw the motive as kindness.
Researchers believe that attitudes towards bribery are linked to cognitive development, i.e., abilities like self-control and understanding another's perspective. The team wrote, "To understand bribery, one must look at the process at the same time from several angles: from the perspective of the donor, the recipient, and the competing parties affected." The researchers noted that very young children often fail to do so.
When older children accepted the gift, they had other reasons, as 37% of them referred to motives related to politeness and gift-giving norms, on the basis that "a gift should not be returned," while another 31% mentioned self-interest as the motive. Those who refused the gift mainly justified it by fairness, with more than half of them saying something to the effect of "this seems unfair or akin to cheating."
But was this decision really based on a general sense of justice? To specifically check this, the researchers conducted a second experiment, where five pieces of candy had to be distributed between two children. Four pieces were distributed fairly by the supervisor of the experiment, while the child had to decide who would get the fifth piece. Unlike the drawing contest, no child came out completely empty-handed here; the issue was only somewhat unfair distribution.
The researchers wrote, "Unlike the bribery task, there was an interaction between the country and age factors in the candy distribution," with preschool children in Italy being more tolerant of the uneven distribution compared to their counterparts in Norway or the United States.
With older children, these cultural differences - which were already minor - disappeared, as they refused inequality to the same extent in all countries.
Researchers believe the different reactions in the two experiments reveal underlying mechanisms in moral learning that extend even into adulthood; ethical behavior does not just arise from an innate sense of justice but must be learned. While cultural influences play a role in this, such as gift-giving norms or expectations of politeness, individual maturity and upbringing also seem to be crucial factors.
Those who understand early on that some gifts are not a sign of kindness, but a means for intended influence, might later think carefully about whether to accept such an offer or not.
