Evaluations of intergroup resource allocations: The role of theory of mind

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relations between children's social cognitive skills and their evaluations of resource allocations in intergroup contexts (N = 73, 3-6 years of age). Participants evaluated three snack-time resource allocation scenarios (self-disadvantaged, self-advantaged, and other-disadvantaged) in either a school ingroup or outgroup context. They evaluated the acceptability of the resource allocation and provided reasoning about their evaluation. Participants who had false belief theory of mind (FB ToM) competence were more likely than participants who did not have FB ToM to evaluate inequality as unacceptable. In addition, participants without FB ToM evaluated unequal allocations to another child as more okay in an outgroup condition than participants with FB ToM. Participants reasoned about their allocations differently depending on the context. Results reveal the importance of FB ToM for recognizing unfair resource allocations, especially in intergroup contexts.