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

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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.

Task 1

Exercise

Task 2

Exercise

Discussion

At the end of the video, why does the man compare the monkeys to humans?

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Language level

B2 Upper intermediate

C1 Advanced

C2 Proficiency

Topics

animals and pets

social issues

Basically, we as human, having similar response and reaction toward inequality. Except that human can choice whether to control the anger or eaten by the anger. Here it is where anger management is needed :)

Both has very similar DNA chain.

Agree, .... both a monkey and a human! :)

Well, the scientist compared monkeys to humans because humans have the same reaction towards inequity, no matter what colour is the person, to which country he or she belongs or to what background they belong, they have to be treated equally.

Simply because if even animals can recognize inequality, how come human being just ignore it?

This is very good englisch course.

They compare monkeys with us beacuse we do feel the same as monkeys. Sometimes I struggled with hard situation and the higher levels gives us cucumber that taste good at the beginning but when I see the richest levels getting grapes for doing the same as me. I do protest throwing away my cucumber because I want grapes too. They taste better than cucumber for sure.

I think that this experiment was very funny. And I learned a new words, like in a row, willing to do something. This course is nice.

Studies show that chimps and humans share a 96% similarity in DNA. That's why their reactions remind us of our commonalities! Some people say that the 4% difference (development) was brought by beings from other space (ET) that came to the earth hundreds of years ago. Can you believe that?

The professor compares the behaviour between human beings and monkeys, under pressure of clear inequity. Actually, the experiment shows up their reactions in different species. What makes people laugh is the evidence of similarity in rage when some unfair acts compromises our conditions, it does not matter the level of education and civilization of subjects under exam. Audience may be studied as well, because their reactions to the behaviour of the monkey and then the following comparison between what happened in Wall Street protest and the raging refuse of the little primate are subtile provocations to make analogies and recognize themselves under the same emotional state. Their laughings shows their agreement to the comparison, they do not protest or argue to the professor's comment - they declare sympathetic feelings towards the poor, little monkey and silently confess too their frailty about inequity.