(featured image: Paul Sableman/Flickr CC BY)
We tend to be ambivalent towards preferential treatment — kind of OK when we benefit (or we grant it to others), but dislike it when it’s others who gain. Or is it not that simple?
We care more for ourselves than for others. This may sound a tad controversial, but it is in fact not surprising: perhaps our oldest and most profound imperative is to pass on our genes — and not those of strangers. So, when it comes to the crunch, we come first.
Of course, in our sophisticated societies, we don’t act this out blindly and in an extreme fashion. Paying a round in the pub (remember those?) to our mates, doing a colleague a favour, or making a donation to a good cause are not likely to significantly endanger our ability to successfully pass on our genes. Also, while collaboration and prosocial behaviour may be puzzling from a narrow, individual perspective, it makes much more sense from a collective viewpoint: societies in which people collaborate will thrive, and so indirectly enable individual success too.
But even in collaboration, we tend to exhibit favouritism: we are more likely to help out close relatives and friends, colleagues, and members of — political…
