Petersen Michael Bang, Sznycer Daniel, Cosmides Leda, Tooby John
Aarhus University.
Polit Psychol. 2012 Jun 1;33(3):395-418. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9221.2012.00883.x. Epub 2012 May 28.
Evidence suggests that our foraging ancestors engaged in the small-scale equivalent of social insurance as an essential tool of survival and evolved a sophisticated psychology of social exchange (involving the social emotions of compassion and anger) to regulate mutual assistance. Here, we hypothesize that political support for modern welfare policies are shaped by these evolved mental programs. In particular, the compassionate motivation to share with needy nonfamily could not have evolved without defenses against opportunists inclined to take without contributing. Cognitively, such parasitic strategies can be identified by the intentional avoidance of productive effort. When detected, this pattern should trigger anger and down-regulate support for assistance. We tested predictions derived from these hypotheses in four studies in two cultures, showing that subjects' perceptions of recipients' effort to find work drive welfare opinions; that such perceptions (and not related perceptions) regulate compassion and anger (and not related emotions); that the effects of perceptions of recipients' effort on opinions about welfare are mediated by anger and compassion, independently of political ideology; and that these emotions not only influence the content of welfare opinions but also how easily they are formed.
有证据表明，我们靠觅食为生的祖先进行了小规模的社会保险，这是生存的一项基本手段，并且进化出了一种复杂的社会交换心理（涉及同情和愤怒等社会情感）来调节互助行为。在此，我们假设现代福利政策的政治支持是由这些进化而来的心理程序塑造的。特别是，如果没有针对那些倾向于不劳而获的机会主义者的防御机制，与贫困非家庭成员分享的同情动机就不可能进化出来。从认知角度来看，这种寄生策略可以通过故意逃避生产性努力来识别。一旦被发现，这种模式应该会引发愤怒，并减少对援助的支持。我们在两种文化背景下的四项研究中检验了从这些假设得出的预测，结果表明，受试者对受助者找工作努力程度的看法会影响其对福利的看法；这种看法（而非相关看法）会调节同情和愤怒（而非相关情绪）；受助者努力程度的看法对福利意见的影响是由愤怒和同情介导的，与政治意识形态无关；而且这些情绪不仅会影响福利意见的内容，还会影响其形成的难易程度。
