The public’s yen to punish Wall Street for its role in the economic crisis, which served to delay the passage of Congress’s economic-rescue plan, is instinctual, according to psychologists who study the human dynamic of retaliation and forgiveness.

This instinct can cut both ways, suggests Benedict Carey in an interesting article in the New York Times:

The fury is based in instincts that have had a protective and often stabilizing effect on communities throughout human history. Small, integrated groups in particular often contain members who will stand up and — often at significant risk to themselves — punish cheaters, liars and freeloaders.

But hark. The fairness instinct, which intensifies in crises like the current one, can amount to mere spite, can be costly to all, and appears to have limited uses:

The catch in this highly sensitive system, most researchers agree, is that it most likely evolved to inoculate small groups against invasive rogues, and not to set right the excesses of a vast and wildly diverse community like the American economy.