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Monkey cooperation and fairness

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Uploaded by on Jan 9, 2009

A pair of capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) show very compelling signs of cooperation and a sense of fairness, by working together to solve a problem using tools, and then sharing the reward.

They also seem to understand fairness: when unequal rewards are given to one monkey and not another, the monkey receiving the lesser treat would rather go hungry than accept anything less than an equal reward.

The token exchange from the latter half of the video is interesting in and of itself; I'm sure it took a lot of training. There is another example of its usage by the same experimenter here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=aAFQ5kUHPkY

From the BBC documentary "Capuchins: The Monkey Puzzle", narrated by the ever brilliant Sir David Attenborough.

More Information:
http://www.bucknell.edu/x30370.xml
http://www.emory.edu/LIVING_LINKS/articles.html

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Uploader Comments (tehinfidel)

  • Now if we train them to open beers and hand them to human masters, then we are talking progress!

  • @HatterMadigan Funny you should mention that. There's a restaurant over here, about 2 hours north of Tokyo in a town called Utsunomiya, which has 2 macaque waiters. A search for "monkey waiters" will turn up some news stories of it here on YouTube. Haven't made up there yet, but I plan to go at some point.

Top Comments

  • 1:10

    USE THIS YOU NOOB

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All Comments (1,052)

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  • @Rob02150 you're getting mixed up with chimpanzees

  • 2:51 I just felt in laughs

  • The 2nd example could have easily lead to a face being ripped off.

  • Forever changed my views on nature!

  • Spoiled brat monkey lol

  • Those monkeys could be trained actors. How the hell am I supposed to know. This video is as likely to be fake as it is real. Hence, there is no credibility.

  • @7mikethebike I thought EXACTLY the same thing

  • The white chips are welfare checks! Damn monkeys!

  • I thought the Vulcan was gonna give the white chip to Virgil and get him to get a grape and pass it back.

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