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“The most interesting thing about cultures may not be in the observable things they do – the rituals, eating preferences, codes of behavior, and the like – but in the way they mold our most fundamental conscious and unconscious thinking and perception.”

– Ethan Watters, “We Aren't the World”22

The Machiguenga, who live in a part of Peru close to the borders of Bolivia and Brazil, enjoy lives many of us would envy. Each family member has the freedom to choose what they work on and when to work. They balance their lives, men as planters and hunters and women as harvesters and cooks, with time for relaxation and fun. Given their relative isolation and self-sufficiency, the tribe has little need for cash.

Most Western scientists who visit this living Eden do so to conduct pharmacological research. UCLA anthropology graduate student Joe Henrich's interest in visiting the Machiguenga, however, was very different.23 Henrich wanted to explore whether human beings were psychologically hardwired to respond universally. In particular, he was interested in knowing whether concepts like fairness and cooperation were basic to all cultures, from Western industrialized societies to more isolated exotic ones like the Machiguenga.

Henrich devised an ultimatum game that is similar to what game-theory buffs and economists call the prisoner's dilemma. The game involved two players, unknown to each other, one of whom would receive the equivalent of several days' wages. The recipient would then decide how much cash to share with the other player, who had the option of accepting or refusing that sum. The dilemma was that if the second player refused the money, the first player forfeited his or her share.

Henrich had great difficulty getting the Machiguenga volunteers to understand the rules, saying: “They just didn't understand why anyone would sacrifice money to punish someone who had the good luck of getting to play the other role.”

This is not how U.S. Americans typically think when it comes to these kinds of games.

For example, when an online article about Henrich's study appeared in Pacific Standard24 in February 2013, hundreds of comments from U.S. readers largely confirmed what researchers already knew about our culture: We prefer splits to be made 50-50; otherwise, we're inclined to punish the other player, even if it means losing money ourselves. We also tend to view someone's behavior as being indicative of a personality trait or disposition as opposed to a situational response. Psychologists call this the fundamental attribution error, or FAE.

Some of the comments on Henrich's research included (italics are ours to highlight examples of FAE)

• “(T)his hypothetical tightwad offered you nothing. If he's that greedy and indifferent to the lives of others, how do you think he'll use the money once he gets it?”

• “The other person has proven themselves unusually greedy and selfish. They've also done nothing to deserve having this fortune showered upon them.”

• “I can only speculate on why this other person wouldn't offer a fair share of this fortune that fell into their lap through no merit of their own, and I find self-absorption a more likely explanation than them needing every last dollar in that fortune for completely altruistic reasons.”

Note how these commentators jumped to conclusions and made assumptions about greed, selfishness, and self-absorption based on the sketchiest of information.