Lamalera whale hunting is a dangerous enterprise with huge payoffs—the sort of collective activity that puts a premium on fair distribution.
That this connection may be quite ancient became clear when a student, Sarah Brosnan, and I discovered it in monkeys. While testing capuchin monkeys in pairs, Sarah had noticed how much they disliked seeing their partner get a better reward. At first, this was just an impression based on their refusal to participate in our tests. We weren’t too surprised. But then we realized that economists had given these reactions the fancy label of “inequity aversion,” which they had turned into a topic of serious academic debate. This debate obviously revolved around human behavior, but what if monkeys showed the same aversion?
Testing two monkeys at a time, Sarah would offer a pebble to one and then hold out her hand so that the monkey could give it back in exchange for a cucumber slice. Alternating between them, both monkeys would happily barter twenty-five times in a row. The atmosphere turned sour, however, as soon as we introduced inequity. One monkey would still get cucumber, while its partner now enjoyed grapes, a favorite food. The advantaged monkey obviously had no problem, but the one still working for cucumber would lose interest. Worse, seeing its partner with juicy grapes, this monkey would get agitated, hurl the pebbles out of the test chamber, sometimes even throwing those paltry cucumber slices. A food normally devoured with gusto had become distasteful.
Discarding perfectly fine food simply because someone else is getting something better resembles the way we reject an unfair share of money or grumble about an agreed-upon denarius. Where do these reactions come from? They probably evolved in the service of cooperation. Caring about what others get may seem petty and irrational, but in the long run it keeps one from being taken advantage of. It’s in everyone’s interest to discourage exploitation and free riding, and make sure that one’s interests are taken seriously. Our study was the first to show that these reactions may have been around for as long as animals have engaged in tit for tat.
Had Sarah and I merely spoken of “resentment” or “envy,” our findings might have gone unnoticed. But because we saw no reason why our monkeys weren’t showing inequity aversion, we drew the keen, somewhat baffled interest of philosophers, anthropologists, and economists, who almost choked on the comparison with monkeys. Indignant commentaries in prestigious journals followed, as well as a sharp jump in speaking invitations. As it happened, our study came out the day Richard Grasso, head of the New York Stock Exchange, was forced to resign because of a public outcry over a pay package of close to $200 million. Commentators couldn’t resist contrasting the unbridled greed in human society with our monkeys, suggesting that we could learn a thing or two from them.
I had to think back to this comparison when, in 2008, the U.S. government proposed a huge bailout of the financial industry. The unimaginable number of tax dollars combined with deep resentment of “fat cat” CEOs who had gambled so much money away led to public fury in the media. As one business magazine put it, “Underlying public distrust of the wealthy and the perception the $700 billion mortgage bailout will help big banks and rich CEOs continues to be the main stumbling block and minefield for passage of a rescue package.” Some saw this bailout as the end of laissez-faire economics, comparing the blow it dealt to capitalism with the way communism had been impacted by the fall of the Berlin Wall. But for me the more interesting part was how people reacted, such as the obvious Schadenfreude about CEOs demoted from their extravagant corner office to a less ostentatious location. When this happened to Richard Fuld, the chief of Lehman Brothers, artist Geoffrey Raymond created The Annotated Fuld, a painted portrait on which fired employees could leave farewell scribbles. Needless to say, they didn’t show much love for their multimillion-dollar boss, with comments like “Bloodsucker!,” “Greed!,” and “I hope his villa is safe!”
If possible, the reactions were even worse when it emerged that some companies had enjoyed luxurious retreats at the same time that they were negotiating for government help. One company had sent its executives to a fancy spa, with massages and all. Another had organized a partridge hunt in England where its employees walked around in tweed knickers, and sipped fine wine at lavish feasts. One executive told an undercover reporter, “The recession will go on until about 2011, but the shooting was great today and we are relaxing fine.” A month later, Detroit’s Big Three automakers arrived in Washington to plead for financial support of their ill-managed industries and faced an outcry when the public learned that each CEO had flown in on his own private jet. Hadn’t they noticed how much the country was fed up with excess at the top? The always subtle columnist Maureen Dowd exclaimed: “Heads must roll.”
Despite the obvious parallels between this outrage and primate behavior, it’s nevertheless useful to point out what our monkeys’ reaction was not. We can exclude both the simplest and most complex explanations. At the simple end, one could argue that the sight of grapes lessens the appeal of cucumber the same way that most men won’t touch a glass of water if you put a beer next to it. In other words, it was not so much what their partner was getting that ticked off our monkeys, but that they were simply holding out for something better. To test this, we added a twist to our study. Before each equity test, in which both monkeys ate cucumber, we’d wave grapes around, just to show that we had them. This may seem cruel, but it hardly bothered the monkeys: They still contentedly traded for cucumber. Only if the grapes were actually given to their partner did the one who missed out go into protest mode. It really was the inequity that bothered them.
At the more complex end, our monkeys did not seem to follow a fairness norm. A norm applies equally to everyone, which would mean in this case that the monkeys were not only concerned about getting less but also about getting more than others. There was no evidence for the latter, however. The monkey with the advantage, for example, never gave away any of her grapes so as to equalize the distribution. If we speak of “fairness,” therefore, it should be understood as the most egocentric kind, similar to the treatment that young children spill tears over.
This applies to monkeys. For apes, on the other hand, we cannot rule out a fairness norm. They seem to monitor their interactions more closely and keep better track of each individual’s contributions to common goals. Chimpanzees, for example, regularly break up fights over food without taking any of it. I once saw an adolescent female interrupt a quarrel between two youngsters over a leafy branch. She took the branch away from them, broke it in two, then handed each one a part. Did she just want to stop the fight, or did she understand something about distribution? There’s even one observation of a bonobo worried about getting too much. While being tested in a cognitive laboratory, a female received plenty of milk and raisins but felt the eyes of her friends on her, who were watching from a distance. After a while, she refused all rewards. Looking at the experimenter, she kept gesturing to the others until they too got some of the goodies. Only then did she finish hers.
This bonobo was doing the smart thing. Apes think ahead, and had she eaten her fill right in front of the rest, there might have been repercussions when she rejoined them later in the day. Privileges are always enjoyed under a cloud. Human history is filled with “let them eat cake” moments that create resentment, sometimes boiling over into bloody revolt. I cannot help but look through the same lens at a gruesome chimpanzee attack on a human, which curiously revolved around cake as well. The central figure was Moe, well-known to the media for a string of incidents in his long career as pet chimpanzee. The last time he was in the news concerned his escape, in 2008, from a California sanctuary surrounded by mountains covered with thick brush. Except for one unconfirmed “monkey” sighting at a nearby nudist camp, and massive efforts with helicopters, bloodhounds, and surveillance cameras, Moe was never seen again.
Moe had been brought from Africa as a baby and lovingly reared by an American couple who treated him as their child for as long as they could. But apes are too strong
and wily to make good pets. The couple was forced to move Moe to a sanctuary after he attacked a woman and a police officer. They regularly visited “their boy” at the sanctuary. A few years before his final escape, on Moe’s thirty-ninth birthday, they brought him a load of sweets to celebrate. Moe received a magnificent raspberry cake, drinks, and new toys, which would all have been fine if there had been no other chimps around. But this was not the case: The sanctuary had taken in other chimps from abusive homes and Hollywood trainers. While Moe was feasting on his cake under the eyes of his foster parents, two male chimps in another enclosure managed to break out. They went straight for the husband. My guess is that they would have attacked Moe if he hadn’t been behind bars. Even though this incident has gone down as one of the most horrific animal assaults ever on a human, it is in line with how male chimps attack members of their own species. The two chimps chewed off most of the man’s nose, face, and buttocks, tore off his foot, and bit off both testicles. He was lucky to survive, which only happened because his attackers were shot.
It is unclear if the motive for the assault was territorial (chimps don’t take kindly to strangers) or rather had to do with all of the attention and goodies lavished upon Moe. The inequity of this unintended experiment exceeded anything ever introduced in our studies. If monkeys get upset by having to make do with cucumbers while others eat grapes, you can imagine how chimps react to seeing one of them own the candy store. Moe’s owners probably hadn’t realized how sensitive chimps are to unequal treatment, especially if the advantaged one isn’t even a friend.
The main reason humans seek fairness, I believe, is to prevent such negative reactions. Even the Monster of Malmesbury thought so, as did the “Sage of Baltimore,” H. L. Mencken, who said, “If you want peace, work for justice.” This is not to deny a role for other-regarding feelings. The golden rule is universally appreciated, and most of us reach a point at which we genuinely feel that others deserve the same treatment that we like for ourselves. We easily produce this rationalization for fairness, which definitely adds power to it, but deep down we also realize what’s at stake. Whatever noble reasons we give for fairness and justice, they have the firm backing of our vested interest in a harmonious and productive social environment.
Other primates seem to adopt a narrower view, focused on immediate benefits, yet it’s too early to conclude that they don’t have a fairness norm. Studies on inequity aversion in animals have only just begun. When Sarah and I tested chimps on grape-versus-cucumber deals, we found reactions similar to those of the capuchin monkeys. But we also explored another well-known human tendency, which is that we relax the rules in close relations. Between family, friends, and spouses we don’t keep as careful track of favors and inequities as we do with acquaintances, neighbors, and colleagues. The chimp data confirmed this difference. Individuals who had spent little time together (similar to Moe and the other sanctuary chimps) showed by far the strongest reaction to getting the short end of the stick, whereas the members of a colony established thirty years ago hardly blinked. Having played together while young and having grown up together, these chimps were virtually immune to inequity. Social closeness apparently makes apes, like humans, less touchy about this issue.
Inequity aversion will no doubt prove a rich area of research, all the more so since there is no reason to think it’s limited to primates. I expect it in all social animals. A most entertaining account concerns Irene Pepperberg’s typical dinner conversation with two squabbling African gray parrots, the late Alex and his junior colleague, Griffin:
I then had dinner, with Alex and Griffin as company. Dining company, really, because they insisted on sharing my food. They loved green beans and broccoli. My job was to make sure it was equal shares, otherwise there would be loud complaints. “Green bean,” Alex would yell if he thought Griffin had had one too many. Same with Griffin.
Another species in which to expect such reactions is the domestic dog, which descends from cooperative hunters used to dividing prey. At the Clever Dog Lab at the University of Vienna, Friederike Range found that dogs refuse to lift their paw for a “shake” with a human if they get nothing for it while their companion is rewarded. Disobedient dogs show signs of tension, such as scratching and looking away. The reward itself isn’t the issue, because the same dogs are perfectly willing to obey if neither one receives food. So dogs too may be sensitive to injustice.
Monkey Money
In the 1930s, when the Yerkes National Primate Research Center was still located in Orange Park, Florida, scientists decided to introduce apes to the wonders of money. They rewarded them with poker chips to be used in a “chimpomat”: a vending machine that delivered food upon insertion of a token. The chimps first needed to understand that the chips were promissory notes to be accumulated and converted. After they had learned this, the scientists introduced chips of different value, such as a white chip worth one grape and a blue one worth two grapes. The chimps quickly learned to prefer the highest-value chips.
Our capuchin monkeys, too, have learned to use tokens in exchange for goodies. In one study, Sarah even got them to learn from one another. One monkey bartered with two kinds of tokens, getting bell pepper pieces for one kind and Froot Loops sweet cereal for the other. Bell peppers rank near the bottom of the preference scale, whereas Froot Loops rank near the top. Just from watching the proceedings, a monkey sitting next to the exchanger would develop a preference for tokens that offered the best deal.
We exploited these monetary skills in the experiment described a few chapters back, in which one capuchin chose between a “selfish” token that rewarded only itself and a “prosocial” token that rewarded both itself and a partner. Our monkeys overwhelmingly preferred the prosocial option, thus demonstrating that they care for one another. This is also well-known for chimps, both in the way they help one another defeat rivals, console distressed parties, defend one another against leopards, and show targeted helping in experiments. Prosociality has a long evolutionary history.
One capuchin monkey reaches through an arm hole to choose between differently marked pieces of pipe while another looks on. The pipe pieces can be exchanged for food. One token feeds both monkeys; the other feeds only the chooser. Capuchins typically prefer the “prosocial” token.
Nevertheless, egoism always lurks around the corner. While testing capuchins with selfish versus prosocial options, we found three ways in which we could kill their tendency to be nice. The first is to pair them with a stranger: They are in a much more selfish mood with partners that they’ve never met before. This fits the idea of the in-group as the cradle of cooperation.
The second, even more effective way to reduce prosociality is to put the other out of sight by sliding a solid panel between both monkeys. Even if the monkey making the choice knows the one on the other side well, and has seen the other through a small peephole, it still refuses to be prosocial. It acts as if the other isn’t there, and turns completely selfish. Apparently, in order to share they need to see their partner. Humans report feeling good while doing good, and brain scans show that our reward centers light up when we give to others. Monkeys may get the same satisfaction from generosity, but only if they can see the outcome, which recalls one of the oldest definitions of human sympathy, according to which we derive pleasure from seeing another’s fortune.
Humans have great imagination. We can visualize a poor family wearing the clothes we sent them or children sitting in the school that we helped build at the other end of the globe. Just thinking of these situations makes us feel good. Monkeys probably can’t project the effects of their actions across time and space, and so the “warm glow” of giving reaches them only if the beneficiary is in plain view. The emotions involved may not be that different between humans and monkeys, but monkeys express them only under a narrow set of circumstances.
The third way to eliminate acts of kindness is perhaps the most intriguing, since it relates to inequity. If their partner gets a superior
reward, our monkeys become reluctant to pick the prosocial option. They are perfectly willing to share, but only if their partner is visible and gets what they get themselves. As soon as their partner is better off, competition kicks in and interferes with generosity.
The same competition can be recruited to squeeze more out of primates in the same way that our economies use it to squeeze more out of people. If you want to keep up with the Joneses, you’ll just need to work a bit harder. Pepperberg exploited the competitiveness of her parrots, and we have noticed that our chimps perform better if we give their rewards to others. When a chimp selects images on a touchscreen, for example, he may do so a hundred times in a row. But inevitably his attention wanders, and errors result in less fruit. If, instead of just withholding these rewards, we actually give them to a nearby companion, our subjects suddenly become very keen on the task. They stay with their eyes glued to the screen and apply themselves so as to prevent their goodies from going to the other. We call this the “competitive reward” paradigm.
Given our interest in such competition, you can imagine how puzzled we were by an out-of-the-blue e-mail telling us that we must be “communists,” because who else would see fairness as part of human nature? Mind you, we get the strangest e-mails (a recent example: a picture of an abundantly hairy chest sent by a man who felt he had ape ancestry, which we of course couldn’t deny), but this particular message sounded rather angry, accusing us of legitimizing social tendencies that our correspondent clearly didn’t approve of even in humans. Fairness and justice, what romantic drivel! The funny thing is that the impression we have of our monkeys is the exact opposite. We look at them as little capitalists with prehensile tails, who pay for one another’s labor, engage in tit for tat, understand the value of money, and feel offended by unequal treatment. They seem to know the price of everything.
The Age of Empathy Page 21