An unfair situation is enough to get anyone’s hackles up. But is our aversion to inequity innate or the product of our social mores? A new study published in Nature suggests that biology does play a role: the brain’s reward centers respond more strongly to situations in which people are treated equally as opposed to unfairly, even when fairness comes at a personal cost.
Researchers gave pairs of young men $30 each and then randomly picked one of them to receive a $50 bonus. Using functional MRI, they scanned each of the men’s brain activity while asking them to judge how they would feel if an additional one-time gift of more cash went to themselves or to the other person in the pair. As expected, when the man who had not received the bonus imagined getting the gift, his ventral striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex—brain areas associated with reward—became active. But surprisingly, when the man who had received the initial bonus imagined the other subject getting the gift, his reward centers lit up, too. In other words, his brain responded favorably to an act that reduced inequality but was not in his best interest.
Although the data suggest that an appreciation for fairness is at least partly biological, no one yet knows whether it is innate or learned, because both genetics and experience can affect brain processes, explains study co-author Elizabeth Tricomi, a psychologist at Rutgers University. “It is not unreasonable, however, to think that there could be an evolutionary benefit to a preference for fairness. Fairness helps us work together, which can benefit everyone,” she says.
This article was originally published with the title You're Happy, I'm Happy.
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"when the man [...] imagined the other subject getting the gift, his reward centers lit up, too. In other words, his brain responded favorably to an act that reduced inequality but was not in his best interest"
So reducing inequality was not "not in his best interest".
"Although the data suggest that an appreciation for fairness is at least partly biological, no one yet knows whether it is innate or learned"
If we look at other studies on animals and humans we can safely say appreciation for fairness is at least partly inate (or if it is not partly inate then a miriad of other life forms, and humans, and are learning it).
We do know from studies that other species (including canids) possess cognition of fairness.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDue to dog family being rather r-selected - short lives more offspring, and early maturing - it is highly likely that the evaluation of fairness is innate.
After all, brains are emotional organs - that is , limbic systems process sensory information in a way experienced as emotional using similar transmission paths and transmitters/hormones, and visibly emotional response- and it is evolutionarily highly useful to detect by members of social species.
Cognition/experience of fairness is a useful adaptation, and likely arose long before our own species.
While it could have been convergent, similarities of brain structure would tend to throw weight behind its appearance in the distant past.
The canids, carnivora, departed from our own line well over 50 to 60 million years ago (that's myriads, we gotta spell things write to effectively communicate, write?) .
Reptiles and bird/dinosaur predecessors may have had sufficient brain similarities to suggest that they also experienced fairness, whether in the nest, where it would be useful for arousal, and so survival.
...or, of course, if they had social interactions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry about the sentence left incomplete!
If fairness is innate to mammals, humans did not need to learn how to be fair. If it is not innate and needs to be learned, it should have been possible to teach people how to be fair. So it is neither innate nor learned.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEmotional/ cognitive? we follow our own tongues. or in this case the pen.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is the ability to love.
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