Two monkeys were paid unequally

Cucumber or grapes? What happens when two monkeys do the same task but get 'paid' in different ways? Watch this funny video to find out how monkeys react to inequality.

Do the preparation task first. Then watch the video and do the exercises. You can also read the transcript.

Preparation

Transcript

So, the final experiment that I want to mention to you is our fairness study. And so, this became a very famous study. And there's now many more, because after we did this about ten years ago, it became very well known. And we did that originally with capuchin monkeys. And I'm going to show you the first experiment that we did. It has now been done with dogs and with birds and with chimpanzees. But with Sarah Brosnan we started out with capuchin monkeys.

So what we did is we put two capuchin monkeys side by side. Again, these animals, they live in a group, they know each other. We take them out of the group, put them in a test chamber. And there's a very simple task that they need to do. And if you give both of them cucumber for the task, the two monkeys side-by-side, they're perfectly willing to do this 25 times in a row. So cucumber, even though it's really only water in my opinion, but cucumber is perfectly fine for them. Now if you give the partner grapes – the food preferences of my capuchin monkeys correspond exactly with the prices in the supermarket – and so if you give them grapes, it's a far better food, then you create inequity between them. So that's the experiment we did.

Recently we videotaped it with new monkeys who'd never done the task, thinking that maybe they would have a stronger reaction, and that turned out to be right. The one on the left is the monkey who gets cucumber. The one on the right is the one who gets grapes. The one who gets cucumber note(s) that the first piece of cucumber is perfectly fine. The first piece she eats. Then she sees the other one getting grape, and you will see what happens. So she gives a rock to us. That's the task. And we give her a piece of cucumber and she eats it. The other one needs to give a rock to us. And that's what she does. And she gets a grape and she eats it. The other one sees that. She gives a rock to us now, gets, again, cucumber.

(audience laugh)

She tests a rock now against the wall. She needs to give it to us. And she gets cucumber again.

(audience laugh)

So this is basically the Wall Street protest that you see here.

© TED

Task 1

Task 2

Discussion

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Average: 4.4 (5 votes)
Profile picture for user Shay_IL

Submitted by Shay_IL on Sun, 09/09/2018 - 16:17

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I think that he compares the reaction to human because he wanted to show that if that there are biological roots that make us, human, act with a stronger reaction to inequity.

Submitted by Albert on Sun, 02/09/2018 - 10:14

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Well, I think behaviour of humans and other animals are pretty much the same. We're striving for food, willing to find a partner and e. g. We even react to inequity the almost the same way, that's why he compared monkeys to humans.
Profile picture for user Kostya B

Submitted by Kostya B on Sat, 01/09/2018 - 21:12

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Because we are too similar.

Submitted by Lolwah on Mon, 27/08/2018 - 23:13

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I think because they share many features and characteristics .

Submitted by Babak010 on Mon, 27/08/2018 - 10:20

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hey there i guess just because Darwin's theory ;) :) really i think monkeys have IQ (Intelligence Quotient) more than others (animals). i think the compare is not correct because even humans have different to each others but was the good show for protest to inequity.

Submitted by GridView on Thu, 23/08/2018 - 16:05

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There is a mistake in the test. Task 2 question 4. The man said "stronger" and transcript proves it, but according the system "strong" is right answer.

Hello GridView,

Thank you for pointing this out to us. The word used in the text is, as you say, 'stronger'. I have updated the task so that this is not the correct answer.

We check all our tasks before we publish them but a certain number of errors will always creep through, and it's good to know we have observant users to help us spot them!

Thanks again,

 

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Submitted by Khouloud Mohammed on Sun, 19/08/2018 - 14:09

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I think he compare the monkey with human because monkey act like humans and do some reaction like them.

Submitted by Alia on Wed, 15/08/2018 - 14:48

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I think that he compared between them because both of them protested against inequity

Submitted by StD on Sat, 11/08/2018 - 10:30

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The man compares the monkeys to humans because both deny to accept inequality.