Experiments explore children's sense of fairness

Source: CBS news

A Yale psychologist recently conducted a series of studies to better understand children's sense of fairness. In her experiments, Dr. Kristina Olson asks children how to divide up an uneven amount of chocolate bars between two children (themselves and a hypothetical other.) When the option is to give the extra bar to one of the two children or throw it away, the children tend to throw the bar away. 

Olson began to wonder if part of this was linked to the child's social desire to be perceived as nice or fair. So she devised a second set-up during which a second researcher snuck an extra candy bar to the children when the experiment conductor was out of the room. In this case, when they didn't think they'd get caught, the children were much more likely to accept the extra piece of candy.