Fairness

Understanding the Psychology of Virtue

In an age rife with stories of cyberbullying, hate crime, rude politicians, and physical violence, it’s certainly worth asking how we as individuals can do better. A new initiative started by two psychologists at Boston College seeks to find a scientific answer to that question.

CIFAR

How to Seem More Generous Than You Really Are

If you’re the sort of person who’d prefer to get something out of your generosity, a group of psychologists has the research you’ve been waiting for.

The Cut

Humans Might Not Be Altruistic ‘Avengers’ After All, Study Finds

Research contradicts the long-held belief that humans interfere when they see the abuse of strangers.

Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine

Nobody Likes a Freeloader — Including Four-Year-Old Kids

“Kids have a pretty strong set of pro-social intuitions around fairness and cooperation, and the need to contribute to larger public goods,” said Yarrow Dunham, assistant professor of psychology.

Quartz

Babies Expect People to Be Fair. They Also Expect Them to Be Prejudiced

A group of researchers tested expectations of fairness in 120 children ranging in age from 18 to 30 months old.

Quartz

Do Kids Have a Fundamental Sense of Fairness?

Experiments show that this quality often emerges by the age of 12 months.

Scientific American

The Disturbing Thing Scientists Learned When They Bribed Babies With Graham Crackers

The general results suggest that people are willing to pay personal costs — up to a point — to avoid dealing with immoral or deviant people, the researchers say, and that this behavior begins very young.

Wonkblog, The Washington Post

How We Learn Fairness

New research shows that we aren’t born with an equality instinct. How do we learn to value fairness for its own sake?

The New Yorker