Moral fairness in today’s economy
moneyrelations :: Mar.31.2008
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I stumbled upon this post in Scientific American about the Mind of the Market. I don’t post about behavioral economy much but I still find the topic fascinating – especially when ideas challenge outstanding notions.
The premise of the article is that humans have been hardwired by evolution to be psychologically fair and we still haven’t deviated from this moral high ground. An experimental procedure was conducted called the Ultimatum Game. Given a $100 to split between a subjet and their game partner, most partners would refuse a share of anything less than $30. Now why would anyone refuse free money?
The answer is moral fairness.
Primates exhibit this behavior as well. When working on a task together, if one monkey gets a cucumber and the other gets a juicy grape, the cucumber recipient gets mighty peeved off – at times refusing future tasks. And even though it’s still free food, I wouldn’t blame them. Choking with anger, that cucumber must taste like a piece of crap.
So, despite the popular conclusion that we have become more selfish in our evolution of the survival of the fittest, it’s nice to know that some of us are still hardwired to do the right thing. And while other have evolved into something else… well, they are just mutants.
Investing myths ::
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Hmm. I wonder if it’s really a desire to be ‘fair’ or a desire not to be run out of town by the insulted other party.