This paper studies whether people can avoid punishment by remaining willfully ignorant about possible negative consequences of their actions for others. We employ a laboratory experiment, using modified dictator games, in which a dictator can remain willfully ignorant about the payoff...

We study how the distribution of other-regarding preferences develops with age. Based on a set of allocation choices, we classify each of 717 subjects, aged 8–17 years, as either egalitarian, altruistic, or spiteful. We find a strong decrease in spitefulness with increasing age. Egalitarianism...