A sense of fairness

Why do strangers cooperate? Help each other? And practice fairness -- even when there is no direct benefit to themselves? Researchers have long puzzled over this. Is it an evolutionary thing? Or is it cultural?

Using behavioural experiments that looked at notions of fairness in relation to a society's economic integration and how much the individuals subscribed to a world religion, a team of researchers have found that the answer may be cultural. Notions of fairness -- that fairness is a good thing, and unfairness should be punished -- was stronger in economically integrated societies. Societies that lacked economic integration, didn't see much need for fairness -- or much need to punish unfairness. The researchers also found that one's propensity for fairness was also strongly linked to a subscription to a world religion. Religion does bring moral codes, and belief in an omniscient god who punishes bad behaviour and doles out rewards for the good, should favour those who are fair with each other.

in reference to:

""In our view, it's actually pretty tough to get people to co-operate in large-scale societies, and it took a lot of cultural evolution over millennia, probably, to get the right set of norms and institutions to internalize the notions of fairness and mutually beneficial exchange," Henrick said."
- CBC News - Technology & Science - Humans learned fairness at farmer's markets, study suggests (view on Google Sidewiki)

Of course, how to explain the following is a bit more difficult: