What makes humans moral beings? This question can be understood either as a proximate “how”
question or as an ultimate “why” question. The “how” question is about the mental and …

From an evolutionary point of view, the function of moral behaviour may be to secure a good
reputation as a co‐operator. The best way to do so may be to obey genuine moral …

Since the Industrial Revolution, human societies have experienced high and sustained rates
of economic growth. Recent explanations of this sudden and massive change in economic …

Background Between roughly 500 BCE and 300 BCE, three distinct regions, the Yangtze
and Yellow River Valleys, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Ganges Valley, saw the …

Moralizing religions, unlike religions with morally indifferent gods or spirits, appeared only
recently in some (but not all) large-scale human societies. A crucial feature of these new …

Effective climate change mitigation is a social dilemma: the benefits are shared collectively
but the costs are often private. To solve this dilemma, we argue that we must pay close …

Since the late nineteenth century, cultural historians have noted that the importance of love
increased during the Medieval and Early Modern European period (a phenomenon that was …

Classic studies in developmental psychology demonstrate a relatively late development of
equity, with children as old as 6 or even 8–10 years failing to follow the logic of merit—that is, …

While we agree that the cultural imbalance in the recruitment of participants in psychology
experiments is highly detrimental, we emphasize the need to complement this criticism with a …

We model the evolution of the division of a resource between two individuals, according to a
bargaining mechanism akin to the ultimatum game, in which a dominant proposer makes an …