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Subscribe to RSSDuring a 2011 talk at the TEDxPeachtree conference in Atlanta, primatologist Frans de Waal discusses the moral sense possessed by monkeys, apes and elephants.
When Occupy Wall Street and similar protests played out over the past year, the phenomenon looked familiar to Emory University primatologist Frans de Waal: He's seen similar moral outrage over economic inequity expressed by monkeys and chimps. And he thinks we could learn a lesson or two from our fellow primates.
"The role of inequity in society is grossly underestimated," he told reporters today, on the final day of this year's meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Vancouver, Canada. "Inequity is not good for your health, basically."
Based on primate studies, that goes for the haves as well as the have-nots. Far from being a uniquely human quality, a sense of fairness is something biologists have seen in studies of primates as well as crows and dogs. Even elephants may have an appreciation of inequity, although de Waal said he and his colleagues haven't done such a study with that species because "you don't want to piss off an elephant."
One of the classic studies involves capuchin monkeys who were given treats when they exchanged tokens with their human handlers. Two types of treats were offered: cucumber slices (meh...) and grapes (yum!). If one monkey saw that another monkey was consistently getting grapes while she was getting only cucumber slices, she'd quickly start protesting — by flinging the cucumber back at the handler and angrily jumping onto the cage walls.
"This is basically the Wall Street protest right here," de Waal said.
De Waal's replay of the scene never fails to get a human laugh, whether it's at the AAAS meeting or at a TEDx conference in Atlanta, as shown in the must-see video above. But there are serious points behind the laughter: Inequality causes tension and stress, not only for the one who gets the cucumber, but also for the one gets the grape (or a million-dollar bonus) and has to endure the resulting outrage.
Researchers set up a barter game with capuchin monkeys to see how they responded to unequal payoffs. For the full story behind this experiment, check out the NSF Science Nation video.
Some primates actually get the message. "In some combinations, the one who gets the grape refuses it unless the other one gets the grape," de Waal said. Other primates make a different choice. De Waal pointed to a chimpanzee study of selfish vs. altrustic behavior, in which the chimps are more likely to be in a sharing mood if they've attracted the attention of another chimp. However, they're not quite as likely to share if the other chimp is actively pressing them to do so.
The bottom line from de Waal's talk is that a sense of fairness, outrage over moral equality and the ability to reconcile and cooperate are not uniquely human behaviors. Rather, such sensibilities were hard-wired into brains long before the rise of the human species. This is reflected in neuroscience as well, de Waal said. "Very ancient parts of the brain are involved in moral decision making," he observed.
All this meshes with the message of de Waal's latest book, "The Age of Empathy." For more from de Waal about the altruism of animals, check out my Q&A from 2009.
Here are a few more nuggets from de Waal's lecture and news briefing in Vancouver:
- Different primate species express signs of reconciliation in different ways. For example, stumptail monkeys make up by inspecting each other's rear ends, without ever looking each other in the eye. In contrast, chimps and other apes (including us hairless apes) "need eye contact" when they reconcile their differences, de Waal said.
- Men make a characteristic pursed-lip gesture when expressing regret — a gesture that's also widely seen in other male primates under similar circumstances. But de Waal says it's rarer to see women making that pursed-lip look.
- Empathy — the ability to share an emotional connection with other individuals — isn't unique to humans. But humans, like many other species, make a distinction between in-group and out-group connections. Having a sense of empathy for people beyond our "in-group," however that's defined, may be a "fragile experiment" being conducted by our species, de Waal said.
- During an earlier session at the AAAS meeting, a group of scientists and philosophers called for the promulgation of a "Declaration of Rights for Cetaceans." De Waal was asked what he thought of setting up a declaration of rights for non-human primates, and he replied that he generally took a "welfarist" view toward other species. Humans were bound by an obligation to animals rather than by a set of rights drawn up on their behalf, he said. He pointed to the recently adopted limits on chimpanzee research as an example. "If they [chimps] are not so necessary for biomedical studies, should we be using them in biomedical studies?" de Waal asked.
More from the AAAS meeting in Vancouver:
- Lab-grown burger to be served this fall for $330,000
- Scientists map the world's microbes
- Device turns gestures into song
- Researchers working to build a better leaf
- Answers ahead for physics' deepest mysteries
- Scientists revive sounds of Stonehenge and other sacred spaces
- Gas-drilling gaffes aren't unique to fracking, study says
Alan Boyle is science editor for msnbc.com. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding the Cosmic Log Google+ page to your circles. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
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I have to wonder at the grape/cucumber experiment. Perhaps it was not so much a matter of "hey, that other monkey got better food than I did", but more a matter of "hey, better food is *available* and I didn't get any", which would have nothing to do with how much the other monkey got. A subtle difference, but a difference, nonetheless.
And that is more than likely how somewhat lower species like horses would approach the better food test.
If monkeys are intelligent enough to know what morality is then it should be safe to assume they could do a better job at understanding what the occupy movement is really about better than the opposing comments i'm seeing. I understand opposing something but at least make an attempt to know what you oppose, like, why they are protesting. Hey Dr. Frans de Waal , can monkeys google ?
Kinda sick reading an article that illustrates some basic levels of behavior that you would THINK the "thinking social ape" would have overcome after several 10s of thousands of years. BUT, it is what it is. The "human" monkey is still in the cave. We are still unaware that the cave has an exit. We'll evolve past contemporary behavior sooner or later. After all, women can vote and work, black people can vote and work, other minorities can work and vote. LOL.. thats progress I guess. I'm pretty sure female monkeys would laugh however, since they've always had to work.
I wished the video had better Volume, I could just barely hear him.
Morality without Religion? Hmmmmm...
At some point in our History, religion did not exist and yet we are here today, with the world still in one piece, a bit scarred but still intact none the less.
There is a Big difference between Religion and Faith. Whatever gets you through the night. My problem with some religious people is how some of them use it for control instead of help and guidance. The Tribal behavior associated with different Religions, associating ones self with like minded people has it's advantages. It also has it's dangers.
If we are all going to survive on One Planet, we better start using our gift for reason instead of Jaded outlooks based on beliefs held by varying groups. We need to keep our emotions in check and allow reasoning to solve our most pressing problems if we want to keep living on this Miraculous Big Blue Marble together.
Unchecked Ego is the Greatest danger to the Human Race.
It has been the Greatest source for Human Triumph,
and it has also been the source of our Greatest Tragedies.
Dick Cheney would have called the monkey who protested a terrorist and would have had him/her waterboarded
Too bad the hairless primates that receive million dollar bonuses don't refuse them unless all of their colleagues receive them as well.
I have studied this in people for years, and found: Sympathy is for suckers and chumps.. and now it seems for chimps too.
watching the republican debates with the wonderful crowds booing a soldier and cheering for the death of a person without insurance coverage gave me considereable knowledge into monkey behavior. i think it must be like devolution or going backwards, instead of learning from the past were getting dumber.
Is that why our politicians must think that a double-dip reccession is nothing but a joke....I'll tell ya, if the indians were so so successful on the California ballot with casinos on their own lands, then maybe the rest of us ought to be at least as successful on the State ballot with a proposition in curbing government spending on double-dip reccessions for themselves, while telling everyone social security won't have enough money, let them pay for social security's solvency beginning with taxing them across the board at every local city county and state employees level starting at 40%, capping it for 10 years there, no cost of living adjustments for either State senate, congressional, or attorney generals and bring government spending under control. And as for most judges if they're not ready for higher courts I wonder if most even belong in a civilian court because they'll be getting their budgets cut too. And if it were a matter of the entire nations economic security, and future then it should take 40 years or more before they could even return to their current self-allocated levels of funding. Or don't they just get that when they ran for office, it also say's either hired by or fired by The People. Or this nation and its capitols may not ever see any surpluses again. And like I told the indians, don't forget the propaganda while gathering signatures for cheap television ad spots.
I might agree with that study in that it represents a captive suppressed population of monkeys that can reason when to share grapes under such complex socially controlled experiments. I think I'll go get some more grapes and kick back.
Say, you could dress all those little monkeys up in circa 18th century French outfits. Even give them little guillotines. Then you could have the group of selfish little monkeys declare that they deserved all the grapes by divine right, superior intelligence, better schooling, superior attractiveness; whatever the pat answer is for one small group hogging all the resources over everyone else on a particular day. Then sit back and watch as "monkey" moral outrage turns into something much more uncontrollable and deadly. Or you could do your experiment in a closed society of, say 250 people. I would imagine you will always get the same result.
This is why lack of opportunity, lack of effort and greed are not the only causes of moral outrage. Pride is just as big of a cause if not bigger, among humans anyway, of moral outrage.
A few people exist in the world, who will never change their standing in any area, no matter how much more money they would be given. And yet some of these types would do anything they can to step on the hand of a lesser one just trying to get a dollar. That is pride.
Another idiotic study. How does he explain where this sense of moral outrage was for all of human history until the past 100 years.
It's a question of morality. If you get it you have morality if you don't then you have none. Face up!
"Morality without Religion"? Rather "Proof that God is not a figment of human imagination?"
Seems he has demonstrated the opposite of his title: that even monkeys are aware of God's presence, therefore God is not a figment of human imagination.
Watch the videos again. This time the test is as follows: If God exists, truly, and not just as figure of human imagination, then even animals will exhibit moral behaviour. Which they do.
Shame on a scientist using this experiment to "prove" that morality exists without God!
I suppose it could be interpreted either way, although both interpretations suggest that we are much more similar to monkeys even then we thought, which supports an evloutionary reltionship.
I think my main protest is his apparent claim to have "eliminated God" from the tests. Apparently, he is so sure that God is a figment of human imagination, that he can eliminate God from a test by observing "moral behavior" in animals. What vanity! He actually believes he can remove God's Own Presence in a simple experiment! What power!
Rather offensive, actually, and I can hardly believe this is "good science".... How can making such an assumption possibly be good science?
At least he is certainly not removing the presence of the God whom I worship, though I would not got so far as to claim that the apparent "moral behavior" observed provides evidence of God's existence...
From a Christian perspective, this is actually quite fascinating:
The experiment seems to indicate that animals also sense God's presence, have knowledge of that "perfect world" that makes us all react to injustice.
But unlike humans, they have no free will, and react as nature commands.
We are only freed from that bond ourselves, humans, through spiritual growth. (Plenty of humans who react exactly as the monkeys do.... Occupy Wallstreeters....)
Oh those Canadian scientists. This type of research would not be supported in the US because of the unspoken conclusion that moral behavior is innate in humans and does not require the existence of a deity, sons of deities, etc.
hmm - the immoral humans put the monkeys in little jails to find out that they have morality and morality is good. Hey humans, why not do the moral thing and let the monkeys be free to have a decent life.
There is no doubt that their are huge discrepancies in compensation for working people, where a large number of people work for much, much less than the top paid managers in a company.
Both sides can agree on that.
But I think the disconnect comes with the discrepancy between the hard working, non-upper management people and those that are basically poor, whether by lack of effort or lack of opportunity.
The hard working middle class DESPISES the poor that are poor because of lack of effort.
The problem comes in with the lack of effort vs. lack of opportunity. In a nutshell, the conservatives believe that the majority of the poor is comprised of lack of effort, and the liberals believe that the majority of the poor is comprised of lack of opportunity.
The politicians pander to the voters with studies and statistics that "prove" whichever side they favor.
No one really wants to hear the truth, whatever that may be, because most people's minds are made up, unfortunately.
May I suggest a further resource to learn more about empathy and compassion.
The Center for Building a Culture of Empathy
The Culture of Empathy website is the largest internet portal for resources and information about the values of empathy and compassion. It contains articles, conferences, definitions, experts, history, interviews, videos, science and much more about empathy and compassion.
CultureOfEmpathy.com
I posted a link to your article in our
Empathy and Compassion Magazine
The latest news about empathy and compassion from around the world
Humans are not bound out all by obligation of welfare to other species; a declaration of rights, as proposed here and also in years past, needs to be made.
So, when you boil it down, Dr. Waal was saying that even in the animal kingdom, the tendency was toward equality, unlike any present-day Republican legislator.
Faaasssscinating....
Life is not fair. Get over it!
Brilliant scientist:
;-)