Fair punishment supports human altruism %p
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The idea of fair punishment helps to maintain altruism in human groups, new experiments have shown. People playing an investing game with real money rapidly abandoned their altruistic behaviour if they felt the punishment given for selfish acts was unwarranted. Z0x ar]4V
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Human altruism intrigues researchers because evolutionary theory predicts that we should only be kind to others if there is something in it for us. But people frequently help out strangers even if they do not expect to meet them again, e.g. tipping waiters or giving to charity. TyD4|| %
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This unqualified generosity shows through the experiments of Ernst Fehr at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, and Bettina Rockenbach at the University of Erfurt in Germany. s @&`f{
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But the important role of fair punishment was a surprise. It may be that groups of our ancestors who found the best strategies to promote altruism prospered, and bequeathed their behaviours to us.
