Who Should Have a Voice? Children’s and Adults’ Evaluations of Universalist Versus Exclusive Voting

In a just society, who should have a voice in group decision making? Should everyone get to decide, or only the most elite and competent individuals? We probed the foundational intuitions underlying these important societal questions through a developmental lens, examining how adults and 4- to 9-year-old children evaluate universalist versus exclusive decision-making systems that could potentially have better decision effectiveness and efficiency. Study 1 found that compared to expert-led exclusive voting, children and adults preferred universal systems and thought they were fairer. Study 2 found similar patterns even when we emphasized the decisions as important and consequential. We also introduced a moral-led exclusive voting system and found that, with age children increasingly believed the universalist system was more fair than both expert-led and moral-led exclusive systems, although they acknowledged the exclusive systems could yield better outcomes (in line with adult responding). Study 3 further investigated evaluations of exclusive systems based on incompetence, immoral behaviors, or arbitrary characteristics. Children and adults regarded immorality-based exclusions as the fairest type of exclusion, followed by incompetence-based and then arbitrary exclusions. Across studies, with age, children increasingly recognized that exclusive voting systems were faster than universal voting, demonstrating an awareness of the trade-offs between inclusiveness and efficiency. These results reveal an early-emerging preference for universalist voting and a growing sophistication in children’s thinking about fair decision-making systems in society.