In 2014, for example, an international study reached a surprising conclusion: people will go to great lengths to give each other a fair hearing and to weigh all opinions equally, even when everyone involved in the conversation knows there are substantial differences in competence between them. The authors of the study (which included people from China, Iran, and Denmark) suggest that this is an “equality bias” built into us based on a human need to be accepted as part of a group.
