I came to think of the famous Vineyard example of Mr. Christ, where a guy has hired some workers to work in his vineyard some day: Some of the workers were hired in the morning under the agreement that they would recieve one denarius for their work that day. Some others were hired in the afternoon and were given one denarius when evening came as well.
Naturally(?) those who had been labouring all day went balistic when they saw that those who only worked for a few hours got the same reward as themselves.
A reaction which can be seen in a lot of the funny situations life throws at us:
- You have scored a somewhat cute girl, when suddenly your mate scores a totally stunning one. Suddenly the cute girl seems less so.
- You have bought something at a price which you find really cheap. The next week the item is further reduced in price, and you feel cheated.
- You got an A on that final test in school. If someone else in class got an A+ your own grade is suddenly less fantastic.

Now, if you cannot recognize such situations, then congratulations - you're a lucky human being. However, a lot of people do have these emotions of disappointment when someone else gets a better deal than themselves. My question is, why are we like that?
Some of you have been pretty good at coming up with explanations for weird behaviour taking outset in evolution, but I cannot really see any situation where this tendency to feel cheated should be an advantage?

I'll have a short go on this:

Well, I think that through evolution we are "programmed" to secure the best for our selves and our offspring. When we reach a goal whcih is of some importance to us we get a feeling of satisfaction. But if we later on find out that this goal is not as good as we thought, we get the feeling of disapointment, of getting cheated. This in order for us to work harder and smarter next time around.

..or complain the hell out of the subject until someone else rewards us with something as the good as stuff we fought for appeared to be...

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I know exactly what you mean, and I think I got a good answer to it. In short: we always strive to be better than everyone else, and jealousy is what makes us do just that, because feeling less worth isn't very nice.

For example, if a mate of yours get a very good grade and you don't. How will you feel? To get rid of that feeling you have to perform better than he/she the next time. If you hadn't tried to improve you wouldnt have got a better grade. The conclusion is, those who couldnt be jealous and didnt push themselves obviously dissappeared due to the natural selection.

OK, perhaps not the best formulation but I think you get the point.

The law of relativity(at a cultural level if you will) and the "Keeping up with the Jones'" syndrome. Simple, though I think there are differences that can be pointed out in all of the examples you gave that make each scenario uniquely different from the others.

This may interest you:

quote:

The sense of fairness that many people regard as a uniquely human quality may actually be found in non-human primates and perhaps throughout the animal kingdom, new research suggests. [...] Brosnan and de Waal say the behavior strongly suggests that the sense of fairness is an evolved trait that predates humans and may be widespread in social primates. Such a trait would be needed to foster the cooperation essential for survival, including gathering food and defending against predators.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health...nkey-usat_x.htm

Shouldn't be too hard to find more information if you could be bothered Googling for it. In any case, I think it does provide some sort of scientific / evolutionary basis for the emotions you're talking about.

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part of fight or flight id say. When someone does better than us we are intimidated. We can take one of 2 options: fight or flight. With fight we take the challenge to become better than whatever is intimidating us. With flight we convince oruselves that we are not interested in such a trait (because it is unmoral or too easy to accomplish or of no value in the scheme of things).For example: Some people will engage themselves in a profession that doesnt pay them too well (but is a sure bet)... and they will diss a rich dude (who took chances). To understand the example better, read "Rich Dad, Poor Dad"

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"If you take the simplest, crudest notion of self-consciousness, I suppose that would be the sort of self-consciousness that a lobster has: When it`s hungry, it eats something, but it never eats itself. It has some way of distinguishing between itself and the rest of the world, and it ahs a rather special regard for itself."
Daniel Dennett

quote:

Originally posted by mongeone part of fight or flight id say. When someone does better than us we are intimidated. We can take one of 2 options: fight or flight. With fight we take the challenge to become better than whatever is intimidating us. With flight we convince oruselves that we are not interested in such a trait (because it is unmoral or too easy to accomplish or of no value in the scheme of things).For example: Some people will engage themselves in a profession that doesnt pay them too well (but is a sure bet)... and they will diss a rich dude (who took chances). To understand the example better, read "Rich Dad, Poor Dad"

Ah--Kyosaki(sp?). I saw him on an infomercial the other day!

What you have posted is exactly why I believe communism/socialism will never work in a human society. The end.

quote:

Originally posted by NeoPhono What you have posted is exactly why I believe communism/socialism will never work in a human society. The end.

See, it's not such a difficult argument after all! Everyone wants the implicit freedom to do better for themselves.

quote:

Originally posted by NeoPhono What you have posted is exactly why I believe communism/socialism will never work in a human society. The end.

you can also interpet it exactly the opposite. if someone else get more than you, the things you have is not as good. Ie economic growth does not necesarly means better lives.

quote:

Originally posted by NeoPhono What you have posted is exactly why I believe communism/socialism will never work in a human society. The end.

I understand why people have the same opinion as you. But I sure don't want a society where some are enormously rich (even if they "deserve" all their money!) and some incredibly poor. Of course you should be able to do better for yourself, but how are you going to afford a good education if you're born in to poverty? The society must give everyone the same basic conditions.

quote:

Originally posted by gurra The society must give everyone the same basic conditions.

sure, the problem with comunnism/socialism before was that it went too far trying to make the people too equal. its all about the balance between equality and freedom.

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