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. Lead researcher Ernst Fehr of the University of Zurich said the three- and four-year-olds were consistently motivated by self-interest, with almost no regard for the well-being of the other. The next age bracket was almost as selfish.

“But if we look at the seven-to-eight year olds, a different picture emerges,” Fehr told AFP.

In the first game, nearly 80 percent of the older kids made sure the other child got the same amount of sweets rather than none at all.

And in the last game, more than 40 percent of them refused to let the other go away with nothing even when they had the opportunity of gaining a double portion by doing so.

By comparison, less than nine percent of three- and four-year-olds were willing to do the same. But generosity had its limits. In the second game, the older children were reluctant to let their counterpart have twice as many as themselves.

In an e-mail exchange with AFP, Fehr said the results suggest that Nature and Nurture jointly shaped behavioral responses, although the study was not designed to calculate the share of each influence.

At least one result was unexpected, said Fehr: children with no siblings were more, rather than less, generous.

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