Can authority affect the behavior of children ‘s third-party punishment?

In recent years, a lot of research has been done on children’s third-party punishment behavior, but there is few research linking authority to children’s third-party punishment behavior. In this study, 273 children aged 6–11 years old were selected, the third-party dictator game paradigm was used to study the identity of the divider (authority: ordinary teacher, the head teacher; No-authority: peer) and the unfairness of the distribution scheme. The results showed that: (1) There are age differences in children’s third-party punishment behavior, which increases with age. (2) The more unfair the allocation scheme, the higher the amount of third-party punishment the children made. (3) The authority of the head teacher has a significant impact on the third-party punishment behavior of children. The punishment amount of children in the distribution situation of the head teacher is significantly lower than that in the peer distribution situation.