[yonex83]

Three to four-year old children behave as absolute egoists; by the age of seven-eight, they start thinking about others. In children, care for the others is based on the pursuit of equality. At the same time, they develop a preferential concern for the members of their social group.” Do we lose our pursuit of equality as adults?

[Maximuffin]

I wouldn't say that as adults we lose our pursuit of equality. It's just that we're getting more suspicious about the others when we had bad experience, eg. people lied to us or abused our good nature. In essence our relative egoism has the funtion of self-protection. After a while when we're getting to know some people better we're becoming more open-minded, nicer and more altruistic. At the time when we start to like someone we are becoming happy to see them happy.

[ufo2012]

(Original post by Maximuffin)
At the time when we start to like someone we are becoming happy to see them happy.

Does that mean though that if they exceed/excel our expectations we are also able to get jealous of them?

[sammy-lou]

(Original post by yonex83)
Three to four-year old children behave as absolute egoists; by the age of seven-eight, they start thinking about others. In children, care for the others is based on the pursuit of equality. At the same time, they develop a preferential concern for the members of their social group.” Do we lose our pursuit of equality as adults?

I think it's generally accepted that children tend to go through stages with this. They start off entirely self-centred, then learn to think of others in the capacity of providing for their needs, then they consider everyone equally, then they start to take in to account other factors for example who deserves preferential treatment (e.g. someone who worked harder than others, someone who needs it more).

I think, as someone said above, as adults we develop a better sense of reality that can make us suspicious and also selfish when we need to be. We also learn that we don't always need to follow the accepted rules in society, so the personal differences between people's morals come out when they either couldn't come out or weren't developed as children.

[ckingalt]

(Original post by yonex83)
Three to four-year old children behave as absolute egoists; by the age of seven-eight, they start thinking about others. In children, care for the others is based on the pursuit of equality. At the same time, they develop a preferential concern for the members of their social group.” Do we lose our pursuit of equality as adults?

If children are more altruistic (I'm not certain they are), then the example makes perfect sense. Children essentially have everything provided for them by their parents or guardians. Being altruistic is natural when it is not the fruit of your labors that is being disbursed.

[Maximuffin]

I guess that altruism is something that you learn because the egoism about our own survival (in general, in society etc.) is deeply rooted in our minds.

@yonex83: Myself couldn't be jelaous of my friends. I could envy them but not be jealous.
This depends on our personality.
For instance I would react with happiness for my friends and motivation for myself.
I focus more on me and think about what I could do better instead of thinking why didn't I achieve the same and he/she did.

[yonex83]

Altruism plays a special role in a group of people. They get the feeling of a “superorganism” (The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt, The Superorganism by Bert Hölldobler and Edward O. Wilson) when everyone is ready to sacrifice himself for the rest of the group. People are willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of the entire group to prevent a threat from another group, this is our nature.