September 23, 2014

Research has been honing in on establishing that a sense of fairness among humans evolved naturally. This new study reveals that an important element of fairness is a willingness to sacrifice personal gain in the service of long-term cooperation with others. This is something some of our politicians should heed and absorb.

In essence, the researchers found that giving up an outcome that benefits you in order to gain long-term benefits from the relationship requires not only an ability to think about the future, but also the self-control to turn down a reward. Only a few species are able to make the leap to this second step, which leads to a true sense of fairness — that is, a willingness to give up a benefit in order to reach equal outcomes and stabilize valuable, long-term cooperative relationships. It’s been found only in humans and their closest relatives, the apes.

This study, from Georgia State University and Emory University, and published in the journal Science, looked at how responses to inequality evolved, through studies of primates. “This sense of fairness is the basis of lots of things in human society, from wage discrimination to international politics,” according to Sarah Brosnan of Georgia State. “What we’re interested in is why humans aren’t happy with what we have, even if it’s good enough, if someone else has more. If you are cooperating with someone who takes more of the benefits accrued, they will do better than you, at your expense. Therefore, we began to explore whether responses to inequity were common in other cooperative species.”

The research was summarized in Science Daily: (Researchers) found that Continue reading →