Kids may be hardwired to ‘share and share alike’: Study

But new experiments with 229 Swiss children between the ages of three and eight suggest that Homo sapiens is probably somewhere in between: humans look out for No. 1, but also express, if not outright generosity, at least an aversion to inequality.

The study, published in the British journal Nature, could help explain how humans developed the ability to cooperate in large groups of individuals who are unrelated, the researchers say.

The children were asked to take part in three different games. In each game, the child was confronted with two options as to how to distribute portions of jelly beans and other small sweets.

He or she was faced with another kid, shown only in a photo to avoid complications arising from face-to-face encounters. One of the options was the same in all three games: divide the sweets equally.

In the first game, the child had the alternate option of keeping a single portion of sweets for himself and giving nothing for the other child.