Economics study finds taste for equality

SAN DIEGO, April 12 (UPI) -- A U.S. behavioral economics study suggests people will spend their own money to make the rich less rich and the poor less poor out of a sense of fair play.

Earlier research demonstrated people will incur costs to punish and reward others, especially in scenarios where every player's contribution to a common pool results in greater benefits for all. But it's been difficult to determine whether the actions are motivated by egalitarian preferences for similar income levels or a desire to enforce norms and encourage group cooperation.

In a new study, University of California-San Diego Associate Professor James Fowler, doctoral student Christopher Dawes and colleagues set up a game to see if there's a drive for equality.

They said the results suggest that with self-interest and group cooperation removed as factors, people still, at a cost to themselves, gave money to the poorest players and took it away from the richest.

Fowler and colleagues believe the experiment shows that egalitarian motives, to some extent, underlie the evolution of cooperation and reciprocity in humans.

The research is reported in the current issue of the journal Nature.