The journal Nature Human Behavior publishes a study by a professor of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences with children under six and monkeys

What is behind revenge? What do we think of punishment if we consider it fair? According to Nereida Bueno-Guerra, a psychologist and coordinator in the Degree in Criminology in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, human beings have psychological mechanisms designed to seek the punishment of those who harm us. That is the conclusion that she reached in a study carried out together with a team of researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig (Germany) with chimpanzees and children under six years of age, and which has been published in the journal Nature Human Behavior. "Both species share similar psychological mechanisms designed to seek the punishment of those who harm us. However, chimpanzees do not seem to share the motivation to see or apply punishment when they have not been harmed, unlike humans, whose motivation for punishment which is merited includes situations suffered by third parties, leading them to establish mechanisms such as courts of justice or universal declarations on human rights, "says Bueno-Guerra.