Justice, Capuchin Monkeys and Investment Bankers

Capuchin Monkey in Costa Rica (Copyright © 2011,   James Matthews)

As with most of my posts, this is inspired after reading a thought-provoking book. This time, it was The Wisdom of the Crowds by James Surowiecki. The book spends a lot of time discussing how large crowds of people can make (deliberately or inadvertently) the best (or most optimal/utilitarian) decision for a given problem. This whole and rather contentious topic is something best left for another blog post, however, there were several parts of the book that covered some more psychological aspects of group behaviour that I wanted to explore.

One area that was especially interesting was the concept of justice. It turns out that humans aren’t the only species that have a concept of justice. In 2003, scientists proved that capuchin monkeys would protest if they saw another monkey “paid” more than them for the same task. This scenario was created by training the monkeys to swap stones for cucumber (the pay). Then scientists then arbitrarily chose one of the monkeys to receive a grape instead of cucumber. The other monkeys would grow indignant, sometimes refusing to take their cucumber, other times taking it and refusing to eat it, other times refusing to continue working (bringing stones). Continue reading “Justice, Capuchin Monkeys and Investment Bankers”