Inequity Aversion

Description

Cathryn Townsend:

"Psychological and game-theory experiments demonstrate the existence of “inequity aversion” among both human and nonhuman primates and the specifically human tendency to punish those who behave inequitably even if administering the punishment incurs a cost to the punisher. For example, Sergey Gavrilets (2012) has used agent-based modeling to show that each individual benefits if within-group competition is reduced and that strong coalitionary action against bullies could have reduced within-group competition in prehistoric hunter-gatherer bands to the extent that conditions would have favored selection for a psychological disposition called the “egalitarian syndrome,” ."including empathy, altruism, and egalitarian morals. Recent studies in neuroscience show that economic inequity is evaluated in the prefrontal cortex of the brain. The prefrontal cortex controls executive functions of the brain, which suggests that inequity aversion is related to a phylogenetically recent reorganization of frontal cortical circuitry in the human lineage."

(https://www.academia.edu/29417676/Egalitarianism_the_evolution_of)