Young children, but not chimpanzees, are averse to disadvantageous and advantageous inequities

Ulber, Julia; Hamann, Katharina; Tomasello, Michael

doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2016.10.013

Cited by 50 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 54 publications

(68 reference statements)

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“…Though nonhuman primates possess a sensitivity to fairness, they do not do so to the same extent as humans. For example, although nonhuman primates show some signs of distributive justice, and will reject unequal distributions that favor another individual [ 36 ], they will not sacrifice their own resources to equalize a distribution, a tendency that is present in humans by age 3 [ 37 ]. Thus, the early onset of a mature set of skills related to fairness sensitivity may provide a strong foundation upon which more flexible, uniquely-human moral behaviors may develop.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fairness informs social decision making in infancy

2018

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The ability to reason about fairness plays a defining role in the development of morality. Thus, researchers have long been interested in understanding when and how a sensitivity to fairness first develops. Here, we examined infants’ ability to use fairness information in selecting social partners. Using a novel experimental paradigm that combined pre-recorded stimuli with an active behavioral measure, we tested whether infants preferred to socially engage with an individual they had previously seen behave fairly or unfairly. After viewing an individual distribute goods to third parties either equally (i.e., 3:3 distribution) or unequally (i.e., 5:1 distribution), both 13- and 17-month-old infants selectively chose to engage in a social interaction with (i.e., take a toy from) an individual who distributed resources equally. The use of a novel paradigm to assess infants’ fairness preferences demonstrates that infants’ previously established fairness preferences extend across different, more demanding paradigms, and may therefore be more enduring in nature. Together, these findings provide new insights into the nature of infants’ fairness representations, and fill in key gaps in the developmental timeline of infants’ ability to use fairness information in their consideration of potential social partners. In sum, these findings build on previous research by demonstrating that infants not only hold an expectation that resources should be distributed fairly, they also preferentially interact with those who have previously done so. The early-emerging ability to both reason about and use fairness information may play an influential role in the development of complex prosocial behaviors related to morality more broadly.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fairness informs social decision making in infancy

2018

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“…Therefore, it is perhaps not surprising that our closest living relatives do not seem to share some of our most fundamental norms of fairness and cooperation [120][121][122] (although see 123,124 ) and that there seems to be no evidence for third party punishment of norm violations harming non-kin in non-human species 125 . In contrast, third party punishment of non-kin and even strangers is frequent in humans 24,59,82 and young children already have a working knowledge of social norms 122,126,127 . The widespread prevalence of social norms may therefore well be one of the defining characteristics of our species and a crucial determinant of human cooperation.…”

Section: Summary and Open Questionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Normative foundations of human cooperation

2018

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A large literature shares the view that social norms shape human cooperation, but without a clean empirical identification of the relevant norms almost every behaviour can be rationalized as norm driven, thus rendering norms useless as an explanatory construct. This raises the question of whether social norms are indeed causal drivers of behaviour and can convincingly explain major cooperationrelated regularities. Here, we show that the norm of conditional cooperation provides such an explanation, that powerful methods for its empirical identification exist and that social norms have causal effects. Norm compliance rests on fundamental human motives ('social preferences') that also imply a willingness to punish free-riders, but normative constraints on peer punishment are important for its effectiveness and welfare properties. If given the chance, a large majority of people favour the imposition of such constraints through the migration to institutional environments that enable the normative guidance of cooperation and norm enforcement behaviours.

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“…Alternatively, it can be advantageous inequity aversion, i.e., an aversion against obtaining a reward that is higher than that of a partner, which is therefore allocentric. In humans, both forms can already be observed in 3 year old toddlers (Ulber et al, 2017). Inequity aversion has also been reported in a variety of primate species (reviewed in Talbot et al, 2016;Ulber et al, 2017; but see Engelmann et al, 2017), but only in the egocentric form (but see Brosnan et al, 2010).…”

Section: Social Norms I: Universal Biologically Anchored Contentsmentioning

confidence: 93%

Evolutionary Origins of Morality: Insights From Non-human Primates

2018

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The aim of this contribution is to explore the origins of moral behavior and its underlying moral preferences and intuitions from an evolutionary perspective. Such a perspective encompasses both the ultimate, adaptive function of morality in our own species, as well as the phylogenetic distribution of morality and its key elements across primates. First, with regard to the ultimate function, we argue that human moral preferences are best construed as adaptations to the affordances of the fundamentally interdependent hunter-gatherer lifestyle of our hominin ancestors. Second, with regard to the phylogenetic origin, we show that even though full-blown human morality is unique to humans, several of its key elements are not. Furthermore, a review of evidence from non-human primates regarding prosocial concern, conformity, and the potential presence of universal, biologically anchored and arbitrary cultural norms shows that these elements of morality are not distributed evenly across primate species. This suggests that they have evolved along separate evolutionary trajectories. In particular, the element of prosocial concern most likely evolved in the context of shared infant care, which can be found in humans and some New World monkeys. Strikingly, many if not all of the elements of morality found in non-human primates are only evident in individualistic or dyadic contexts, but not as third-party reactions by truly uninvolved bystanders. We discuss several potential explanations for the unique presence of a systematic third-party perspective in humans, but focus particularly on mentalizing ability and language. Whereas both play an important role in present day, full-blown human morality, it appears unlikely that they played a causal role for the original emergence of morality. Rather, we suggest that the most plausible scenario to date is that human morality emerged because our hominin ancestors, equipped on the one hand with large and powerful brains inherited from their ape-like ancestor, and on the other hand with strong prosocial concern as a result of cooperative breeding, could evolve into an ever more interdependent social niche.

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Young children, but not chimpanzees, are averse to disadvantageous and advantageous inequities

Cited by 50 publications

References 54 publications

Fairness informs social decision making in infancy

Fairness informs social decision making in infancy

Normative foundations of human cooperation

Evolutionary Origins of Morality: Insights From Non-human Primates

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