Non-human Studies
An experiment on capuchin monkeys (Brosnan, S and de Waal, F) showed that the subjects would prefer receiving nothing to receiving a reward awarded inequitably in favor of a second monkey, and appeared to target their anger at the researchers responsible for the inequitable distribution of food. Anthropologists suggest that this research indicates a biological and evolutionary sense of social "fair play" in primates, though others believe that this is learned behavior or explained by other mechanisms. There is also evidence for inequity aversion in chimpanzees (though see a recent study questioning this interpretation). Recent studies suggest that animals in the canidae family also recognize a basic level of fairness, stemming from living in cooperative societies. Animal cognition studies in other biological orders have not found similar importance on relative "equity" and "justice" as opposed to absolute utility.
Read more about this topic: Inequity Aversion
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