A Qualitative Study of Chinese Children's Concept of Procedural Justice

The development of Chinese children's concepts of procedural justice in a real-life group distribution was investigated in a qualitative approach. Thirty groups (four children in each group) of 5-, 7- and 9-year-old children were asked to distribute four kinds of gifts. The groups freely discussed how to distribute the gifts and then distributed among themselves. A week later, fifteen groups received feedback on just procedures and then completed a similar group distribution task. The 5-year-old children have not nearly mastered the concept of procedural justice. They could only use just procedures after receiving the feedback and their use of procedures was symbolic. The 7-year-old children were sensitive to procedural justice and were able to use and negotiate just procedure;. 9-year-old children could evaluate the used procedures and propose better ones. At each age, there were some children who gave up the distribution right or tacitly recognized the group leaders' distribution. 5- to 9-year-old Chinese children's concept of procedural justice reflected Confucian ethics.