The role of harm salience on children’s and adults’ perceptions of unfairness

Fairness is typically assumed to be in the moral domain, yet recent work shows that young children may not view unfairness as a moral transgression. We investigated whether this may be because the harm caused by unfairness is less salient than the harm caused by more prototypical moral transgressions. We found that both 4-year-olds and adults rated unfairness more seriously when the harm caused by the unfairness was emphasized rather than not emphasized. When asked to categorize unfairness as either moral or conventional, 4-year-olds did not systematically choose either category. Most adults, on the other hand, categorized unfairness with conventional transgressions. These findings suggest that perceptions of unfairness exist along a continuum and are influenced by the salience of the harm caused by unfairness. Highlighting the harm inflicted by unfairness may be an important way to move people, from an early age, to notice and correct it.