Fair is fair
We humans place a high value on the principle of reciprocity – if I do something for you, you should do something for me.
Or if I do the same work as someone else, I should get the same reward. Frans de Waal at Emory University in Atlanta wondered if we share this sense of fairness with primates such as monkeys and chimpanzees. de Waal and his colleagues studied capuchin monkeys in a laboratory. They traded pieces of cucumber with these monkeys for rocks already in their cages.
The monkeys were happy with the trade – until one monkey got grapes instead of cucumber. The other monkeys – jealous of the more highly prized grapes – threw away their cucumbers and rocks and refused to make any more trades.
Frans de Waal: It’s an emotional reaction that we also have, and that economists are very interested in.
De Waal now wonders how primates in the wild distribute the food they get from a cooperative hunt. If the spoils aren’t distributed fairly, they may lose interest in working together.
Frans de Waal: And that’s of course very much the same problem that we have in our corporations, where people work together for a common goal, and everyone wants to share in the payoffs.
Our thanks to:
Frans de Waal
Professor of Psychology, Emory University
Director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes Primate Center
Atlanta, GA
