IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v446y2007i7137d10.1038_nature05651.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Egalitarian motives in humans

Author

Listed:
  • Christopher T. Dawes

    (University of California, San Diego, California 92093, USA)

  • James H. Fowler

    (University of California, San Diego, California 92093, USA)

  • Tim Johnson

    (Center for Adaptive Behaviour and Cognition, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Lentzeallee 94, Berlin 14195, Germany
    Stanford University, Palo Alto, California 94305, USA)

  • Richard McElreath

    (University of California, Davis, California 95616, USA)

  • Oleg Smirnov

    (University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida 33124, USA)

Abstract

Equality control A behavioural study has provided clear evidence that egalitarian sentiment is a cause for punishment in multilateral human interactions. In a laboratory game, players were allocated different sums of money, and were then able to 'reward' or 'punish' others by giving or taking money away. The richest players were penalized the hardest, whilst the poorest were penalized the least. The players appeared to be motivated by an emotional reaction to inequality, since they reduced and increased others' incomes at a personal cost, even when there was no cooperative behaviour to be reinforced. Egalitarian motives could be an important factor in the evolution of reciprocity and cooperation in humans.

Suggested Citation

  • Christopher T. Dawes & James H. Fowler & Tim Johnson & Richard McElreath & Oleg Smirnov, 2007. "Egalitarian motives in humans," Nature, Nature, vol. 446(7137), pages 794-796, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:446:y:2007:i:7137:d:10.1038_nature05651
    DOI: 10.1038/nature05651
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature05651
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature05651?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:446:y:2007:i:7137:d:10.1038_nature05651. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.