Members in the Media
From: The New Yorker

How We Learn Fairness

The New Yorker:

A pair of brown capuchin monkeys is sitting in a cage. From time to time, their caretakers give them tokens, which they can then exchange for food. It’s a truth universally acknowledged that capuchin monkeys prefer grapes to cucumbers. So what happens when unfairness strikes—when, in exchange for identical tokens, one monkey gets a cucumber and the other a grape?

When Sarah Brosnan and Frans de Waal carried out just this experiment, in 2003, focusing on female capuchin monkeys, they found that monkeys hate being disadvantaged.

Read the whole story: The New Yorker

More of our Members in the Media >


APS regularly opens certain online articles for discussion on our website. Effective February 2021, you must be a logged-in APS member to post comments. By posting a comment, you agree to our Community Guidelines and the display of your profile information, including your name and affiliation. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations present in article comments are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of APS or the article’s author. For more information, please see our Community Guidelines.

Please login with your APS account to comment.