Monkeys and money

I thought this was an interesting story. Monkeys don’t have much use for money, but since they like marshmallows, they are up for experiments like this one. From Psychology Today:

Keith Chen and Marc Hauser at Yale University taught monkeys about resources that bear a strong resemblance to money. Monkeys dont care about money, per se, but they do care about marshmallows. This already is a difference of gigantic proportions in that monkeys must learn about resource-exchange using something that is already a primary reinforcer - food - whereas humans can extend the range of their motivations to secondary reinforcers. A resource marshmallows exchange task was introduced whereby pressing a lever would give another monkey a marshmallow; hence this was a task that involved a bit of altruism. Not only were monkeys taught about the game. Two specific monkeys were conditioned entrained, such that one always pulled the lever for his monkey partner thus being a very generous partner and the other never pulled the lever for his partner stingy. Then they let these conditioned monkeys play the game with other monkeys. Monkeys that played with the highly generous monkey figured it out and quickly took advantage of him. Monkeys that played with the stingy monkey also figured it out quickly and subsequently shunned or were aggressive toward him.

The Evolution of Economic Rationality: Do Monkeys Understand Money? | Psychology Today Blogs.

If I had a little more time, I’d make some sort of parallel to tipping in Las Vegas. I just like the idea of a bunch of monkeys warning each other that a particular monkey is a real stiff. They really should try this same experiment in a blackjack pit and see what happens.

And I really picked the wrong discipline. I should have gone into psych and specialized in monkeys. Then I could be the one running the experiments to see what monkeys do and don’t like. If only…

Let’s see, they’ve already hated quarters, dill pickles, and popcorn. They kind of liked the oranges and baseball caps. Bring on the marshmallows!

I’m so very thankful that this article didn’t run under a picture of a chimp with spaghetti on his head. I’ve never understood the appeal of that. But it was still a little troublesome to see the chimp rolling in the green when the article was about monkeys. It’s like writing a story about Imperial Palace and featuring a picture of Wynn.