1 . Recently, I was walking with some parents when we came across a five-pound note lying on the ground. We stood around it for a moment, a bit awkwardly, until someone suggested putting it on a nearby bench. Then one of the parents remarked that we’d probably have behaved differently — that is, we would have just taken the money — had we been alone.
This relates to a classic question in studies of human generosity: do we behave more selfishly when we aren’t being observed? The debate goes on across the psychological and biological sciences, as well as in popular culture, about whether kindness can exist in a competitive world.
Yom Kippur is a Jewish (犹太人的) religious holiday when Jewish people fast and ask for forgiveness for the wrongs they’ve committed. One of the points of Yom Kippur is to behave better regardless of who is watching. There’s an evolutionary beauty to the teachings of Yom Kippur, which are the products of thousands of years of cultural changes and evolution.
The Maasai people of Kenya practice osotua: relationships between people that operate based on need. When someone forms an osotua relationship with another, they enter into an unwritten contract to help their partner in times of need. And hunter-gatherer groups, which can represent the circumstances our species evolved in, have many similar examples.
Cultural evolution helps to explain the existence and complexity of these systems. Cultural changes are far faster than biological evolution, allowing intelligent species like humans to develop behavioral adaptations for managing complex social environments. Osotua, or any other practice that helps to maintain good treatment of others in society, is the result of tens of thousands of years of cultural trial and error. The customs passed down over time are those that help us to develop as cultural groups.
The study of those changes has helped us to understand how we successfully spread around the world as cooperative groups. Biological evolution has helped humans be more cooperative, but cultural changes have accelerated this process.
Cultural evolution helps us to overcome our selfish natures. Try to understand rules before you ignore them — and next time you find a fiver on the ground, you might think about the awkward situation your discovery represents.
1. What made the parents feel a bit awkward?| A．The difficulty sharing the money. |
| B．The difficulty finding the owner of the money. |
| C．The thought of putting the money on the bench. |
| D．The thought of keeping the money for themselves. |
| A．To highlight a fact. | B．To draw a conclusion. |
| C．To make a comparison. | D．To support an argument. |
| A．It evolves much slower. | B．It takes much less time. |
| C．It is a more complex process. | D．It makes humans more cooperative. |
| A．How cultural evolution takes place. | B．Why people sometimes behave selfishly. |
| C．Why kindness exists in a competitive world. | D．How kindness spreads throughout the world. |
