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Why do people think that others should earn this or that?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2018

Daniel Sznycer ,
Elsa Ermer  and
John Tooby
Daniel Sznycer
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Montreal, Montreal, QC, H3C 3J7, Canada. [email protected]://danielsznycer.org/
Elsa Ermer
Affiliation:
Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD 21201. [email protected]://sites.google.com/site/elsaermer/
John Tooby
Affiliation:
Center for Evolutionary Psychology, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-3210. [email protected]://www.cep.ucsb.edu/
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Abstract

Some questions, such as when a statistical distribution of incomes becomes too unequal, seem highly attention-grabbing, inferentially productive, and morally vexing. Yet many other questions that are crucial to the functioning of a modern economy seem uninteresting non-issues. An evolutionary–psychological framework to study folk-economic beliefs has the potential to illuminate this puzzle.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 41 , 2018 , e189
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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