Only Humans Care About Fairness

Only Humans Care About Fairness

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Humans could be the only animals that are sensitive to fairness, suggests a new Royal Society Biology Letters study. It’s not that other animals are unfair. They just don’t seem to care as much about fairness as we do, or so this and other research concludes.

Ingrid Kaiser of the University of Heidelberg and colleagues focused their investigations on bonobos and chimpanzees. Chimps have long been regarded as the closest living relatives of humans. “Bonobos and chimpanzees in this study were equally insensitive to inequity,” the researchers concluded. “This finding is very different from what is found in humans, including children. While humans are strongly affected by concerns for fair allocations and fair intent, chimpanzees and bonobos do not appear to be.”