““The psychologists Peter Blake and Katherine McAuliffe paired up four- to eight-year-olds who had never met, placing them in front of a special apparatus that was set up to distribute two trays of candy. One of the children had access to a lever that gave her the choice either to tilt the trays toward herself and the other child (so that each child got whatever amount of candy was on the nearest tray) or to dump both trays (so that nobody got any candy). When there was an equal amount of candy in each tray, the children almost never dumped. They also almost never dumped when the distribution favored themselves—say, four candies on their tray, and one candy on the other child’s tray—though some of the eight-year-olds did reject this choice. But when this distribution was reversed to favor the other child, children at every age group frequently chose to dump both trays. They would rather get nothing than have another child, a stranger, get more than they did.””
