FACTOID: Animals Understand Fairness

Animals understand fairness. Dr. Sarah Brosnan from Georgia State University, USA, has been studying the psychology and behaviour of primates.  The study has concluded that fairness has evolved to support cooperation over long periods of time.

"Giving up an outcome that benefits you in order to gain long-term benefits from the relationship requires not only an ability to think about the future, but also the self-control to turn down a reward," Brosnan said. "These both require a lot of cognitive control. Therefore, we hypothesize that lots of species respond negatively to getting less than a partner, which is the first step in the evolution of fairness, but only a few species are able to make the leap to this second step, which leads to a true sense of fairness." 1

----- 
A few of my own thoughts:

Humans are highly complex beings - and yes, we are of the animal kingdom - not exempt from the measurement of "fairness". When we think about what is fair or not fair, how often do we consider the "other" person, friend, or stranger? In your job, at the gym, walking down the street, or in your home, what do you consider to be "fair"? Surely, everyone has a slightly different opinion, but perhaps fairness is more than one thing: law, social, emotional, procedural, environmental, interactional, distributive, economical, etc...

From my own experience, I believe that all people wish for all aspects of their life to be "fair", but I think balanced equality may be misunderstood with exact equality. Perhaps what you have is not the same as your neighbour, or that of your kin, but when you start to look at what you do have, does it balance out? Relationships may be taken for granted; food on the table; jobs; shelter; the environment in which you live; clean water... the list goes on.

Today, take a moment to reflect upon what you are thankful for. We may not be receiving cucumbers and grapes, but humans have an advantage: the intellect to examine the difference between exact equality and balanced equality. Let our ability to cooperate be a strength!!

Further Reading:

Sarah F. Brosnan and Frans B. M. de Waal. Evolution of responses to (un)fairness. Science, 18 September 2014 DOI: 10.1126/science.1251776

Sarah F. Brosnan, Frans B. M. de Waal. Monkeys reject unequal pay. Nature, 2003; 425 (6955): 297 DOI: 10.1038/nature01963


1  Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140918141151.htm