‘…"What surprised us is that children responded equally to the theft, unfairness, and loss conditions," Jensen says. "They treated all of them equivalent, whether they were affected or whether the puppet was affected." The children viewed a third-party violation with as much disdain as they did a personal one, and where adults might discriminate between outright theft, loss, or an unfair situation, the children punished them all equally. The children preferred restoration to punishment, and when they were able to restore stolen or lost items, they usually returned the hot items to the original owner, "even if the original owner was another puppet," Jensen says.
Taken together, the findings indicate that children’s reactions to third-party violations were more about responding to the needs of the "victim" than they were about punishing perpetrators.
"Young children seem to be very responsive to the distress that another individual might be feeling. This is called effective perspective taking," Jensen says. "This ability to show concern for others seems to be a very strong motivational force."
As adults, our sense of justice is based on learned rules and norms; we wield punishment as a deterrent and a form of revenge. But "in young children, it seems that we start with the pro-social aspect of [justice]," Jensen says, starting "with the concern we have for the individual who’s harmed. Those other aspects of justice then become layered on top of that."…’
via Toddlers Carrying Out Restorative Justice – Pacific Standard.