Monkeys (and other animals) resent unfairness

Here’s an updated version of a classic experiment originated by Sarah Brosnan showing that capuchin monkeys resent what they perceive as unfair unequal pay. The monkeys in this test have been taught that they can buy a treat with a pebble. A bit of cucumber is enough to serve as a treat, but a grape is much preferred. When a monkey paid in cucumber pieces sees another monkey paid in grapes, the monkey paid in cucumber bits takes very obvious offense. Watch:


Link: https://youtu.be/meiU6TxysCg

If you click through to YouTube you can find interesting related videos.

Incidentally, I’ve personally observed similar behavior in dogs.

(Updated 2015 Dec 17 to fix broken YouTube link.)



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Monkeys (and other animals) resent unfairness — 1 Comment

  1. Pingback: In experiment, dogs exhibit altruism especially toward other dogs they know | D Gary Grady

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