Honesty-Humility and Dictator and Ultimatum Game-Giving in Children

Abstract Fairness can be affected by personality traits, situational factors, and person-situation interactions. Based on studies with adult samples, the present study investigated elementary school children’s (N = 164) social behavior in versions of the Dictator and the Ultimatum Game with actual incentives. Importantly, the Ultimatum, but not the Dictator Game includes the fear of retaliation for unfair allocation offers. The results show predictive power of the situation and the personality dimension Honesty-Humility, but not their interaction. Children offered more candies in the Ultimatum Game than in the Dictator Game, and, in general, children higher in Honesty-Humility offered more candies than children lower in Honesty-Humility.