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This paper set out to investigate the developmental trajectory of social preferences across culturally and institutionally distinct populations, drawing on experimental evidence gathered from an international sample of participants. By examining how preferences for fairness, reciprocity, altruism, and in-group favouritism emerge and evolve across datapoints and national contexts, this study contributes to a growing body of experimental economic literature that moves beyond the assumption of universal, stable, and self-interested The experimental findings presented in this paper yield several conclusions of both theoretical and empirical significance. First, the results confirm that social preferences are not fixed at birth nor uniformly acquired, but develop along trajectories that are meaningfully shaped by cultural exposure, institutional environment, and socialisation processes. Younger participants across all sampled countries exhibited a broadly consistent baseline of other-regarding behaviour in early childhood, suggesting a common developmental foundation. However, divergence across national cohorts became increasingly pronounced with age, lending support to the hypothesis that culturally specific norms and institutional incentives play a conditioning role in the maturation of prosocial and competitive preferences alike. Second, the cross-national variation documented in this study carries important ideas of how to integrate for economic modelling. Standard assumptions of homogeneous preference formation, long embedded in neoclassical frameworks, are difficult to reconcile with the heterogeneity observed across pilot sites. The findings instead align more closely with models that incorporate endogenous preference formation, suggesting that future theoretical work would benefit from explicitly accounting for the role of social environment as a determinant of preference structure, rather than treating it as exogenous Third, the evidence on fairness norm acquisition is particularly instructive. Across pilot sites, a willingness to accept unequal outcomes diminished consistently as participants aged into middle childhood and adolescence, irrespective of national context. Yet the threshold at which inequality became unacceptable, and the degree to which participants were willing to incur personal costs to enforce fairness, varied substantially across countries. This pattern suggests a two-layered developmental process: a universal sensitivity to fairness that emerges early, subsequently modulated by culturally Several limitations of this study warrant acknowledgement. The experimental tasks, while designed for cross-cultural comparability, may carry implicit framing effects that interact differently with local norms across sites. Sample sizes individual country cohorts remain modest, and the pilot nature of the data collection constrains the generalisability of quantitative estimates. Future research should seek to replicate and extend these findings using larger, pre-registered samples and longitudinal designs capable of tracking individual preference development over time. Notwithstanding these constraints, this paper makes a substantive contribution to the empirical literature on preference formation by providing internationally comparable developmental evidence that is currently scarce. The findings underscore the value of cross-national experimental designs in economics and highlight the importance of integrating developmental and cultural perspectives into the study of economic behaviour. As policymakers increasingly rely on behavioural insights to design institutions and interventions, a richer understanding of when, how, and why social preferences form is not merely an academic concern — it is a precondition for effective and equitable policy. The conclusion synthesises findings, addresses theoretical implications, honestly acknowledges limitations, and closes with a strong statement on policy relevance — all standard expectations for an economics research paper conclusion.