Human behaviors are often explained as hard-wired evolutionary leftovers of life on the savannah or during the Stone Age. But a study of one very modern behavior, fairness toward total strangers one will never meet again, suggests it evolved recently, and is rooted in culture rather than biology. In a series of three behavioral tests given to 2,100 people in societies around the world, an innate sense of fairness dovetailed with participation in markets and major religions. Generally speaking, these use social norms and informal institutions to promote fairness, which allow societies to become larger and more complex. Biologically speaking, people in the study weren’t fundamentally different from their circa-200,000 B.C. ancestors, or from each other. What differed was their cultural DNA. ‘You can’t get the effects we’re seeing from genes,’ said Joe Henrich, a University of British Columbia evolutionary psychologist and co-author of the study.’ These are things you learn as a consequence of growing up in a particular place. The study was published March 18 in Science. Kindness towards strangers is a baffling human trait, given that strangers appear to have been treated with suspicion and violence for most of human history. Some analyses […]