18
September 2003
Animal behaviour: Grape expectations
"A cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing". Dr Samuel Johnson's views (quoted in Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides) are close to those of brown capuchin monkeys. A monkey willing to perform a task for a cucumber may refuse to do so if its partner is given a tasty grape. "It's not fair", the complaint of children the world over, is the message. In balking at this unequal pay, the monkey is surely being irrational, rejecting food that is on offer. But the negative emotion of "unfairness" and the refusal to accept inequitable situations has been a positive influence in the long-term in the development of human society, and the same evolutionary pressures seem to have prevailed in other primates as well.
Monkeys reject unequal pay
SARAH F. BROSNAN & FRANS B. M. DE WAAL
Nature 425, 297–299 (2003); doi:10.1038/nature01963
| First
Paragraph | Full
Text (HTML / PDF) |
