Why monkeys (and humans) are wired for fairness | Sarah Brosnan

Fairness matters ... to both people and primates. Sharing priceless footage of capuchin monkeys responding to perceived injustice, primatologist Sarah Brosnan explores why humans and monkeys evolved to care about equality -- and emphasizes the connection between a healthy, cooperative society and everyone getting their fair share.

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[RubsNL]

I've seen the cucumber vs grape footage many times. Very interesting to hear from one of the researchers behind it.

[softmanbat]

"If a monkey hoarded more bananas than it could eat, while most of the other monkeys starved, scientists would study that monkey to figure out what the heck was wrong with it. When humans do it, we put them on the cover of Forbes." - Nathalie Robin Justice

[ioncrops]

**Human Worker watches Human Politician getting all the grapes by the means of many lies**
**Throws away the cucumber and shakes the fences**

[imrannazir]

This is probably why some companies are opaque about salaries. Knowing you are not being paid fairly in the office might stop you cooperating with your colleagues.

[angelic]

Repeating 30+ years of research here, but if anything, this is more important than ever. We have known this for a *very* long time. Case and point: How societies with fair taxation and law systems have very low levels of crime and violent mental health problems.

[shaminoranger]

There are definitely some people who LOVE unfairness and actively seek to dominate others. The same people cry about how unfair it is when their victims fight back.

[ThomasTrue]

I sincerely dislike the term "survival of the fittest", because it is a social Darwinism term, first coined by Herbert Spencer, who was first and foremost an economist, who abused natural selection to fit his own "weakest to the wall" economic philosophy.

Surely the point of natural selection is that the fittest survive - in the environment best suited to them? The man who coined the phrase "natural selection", Patrick Matthew of Gowrie, observed this through his work as an arboriculturist; he found that certain trees were suited to certain environments, but some would wither where others thrived, and vice versa. This of course teaches us that there are none 'better' than others, just more adaptable. I for instance would be lost in your work, but then I sincerely doubt you could do my job as a tax collector. Yet both our roles carry equal relative importance to society. To coin an old phrase, it is "horses for courses".

[davids.]

Quarantine brought me here. I've just started enjoying these TED talks.

[kevinwells]

I loved this talk Sarah. But something snapped in me, maybe 8 months ago now. I had a minor stroke, and had to be bed ridden for awhile. I come from the corporate world. Now I work at a gas station.. I see a lot of this behavior that you are discussing among 'team mates' - even though we are a small store. It's very small angst that they hold really, because it is too noticeable when someone really get's worked up - but when I tell them I don't care about the pay, I just want to be moving - they can't understand that. There is a woman there that wants to 'move up'... I supported her from the onset. I support anyone that wants to do that. But it is very hard for most of them to understand my support. Even the 'bosses' have a little difficulty with it, but they are o.k. now. Anyway, you touched me because I absolutely believe we have similar community behavior to our primate 'brothers and sisters', and most of our needs and desires are very basic. But for this primate (me to be clear), it is very liberating to have been close to a near death experience, and live through it.  
(Update) I was nodding off after typing that... (age related) - but restarted and finished your video. The idea of the current protests being led from the bottom, not stymied from the top is somewhat liberating also.  It seems logical, but the 'haves' and 'have nots' has been around throughout our history. The politicians will not give up their lucrative posts very quickly. Term limits has not been discussed in years, at least not brought to a vote. I think you have wishful thinking there. But anyway, I should have quit when I was (possibly) ahead.

Great discussion though Sarah, and thank you for it. Happy Holidays.

[iloveyouamberappel]

Its too bad the disadvantaged humans rarely work together. They are too busy trying to fight their way to the top of the bottom.

[DavidSanchez-vxbv]

This goes even further: a system based on unequality (no matter if it is a social, economic or physical system) IS unbalanced and tend to crash... so if we are here is because we look (need) for balance. Let's try to find it in every aspect of our lifes.

[bpri]

The top 1% seem to work well with each other, they will play musical chairs with each other and even the looser wins big, by loosing.

[kaielvin]

Sounds like the prisoner's dilemma.

[freesk]

It may not be about fairness. It may be about knowing something better (ie the grape) is possible as a trade. Seems to me that this is goes beyond the data..

[hedgehoggreece]

While in whole I liked the hole speech, I found the example with the choice given between 50 K for them and 25 K for everyone else, or 100 K for them and 250 K for everyone else, quite misplaced.

Money, in contrast with cucumbers and grapes have no intrinsic value. 1 billion is not enough to buy a gum if everyone else own quadrillions.

Even when (or if) anyone disdains the seek of wealth, I bet there are very few (if any) people seeking to be poor. 100 K for the person and 250 K for everyone else would instantly make that person the poorest in the world!

I believe that this survey can only be used in regards of the percentage of the people that understand basic economics, and not to view the fairness of anyone.

If the same question though was rephrased using food or anything else that can be actually used, and not money, that argument could stand.

[juandeluna]

*laughs in taking all the jellybeans from my siblings

[alphabet]

There's nothing fair about throwing crap at people walking past you.

[broodkraut]

It's all about fairness after all. Would to some extend explain, why many people are angry at those big companies.

[Cecak]

Perhaps when we try to find a reason from a nature, unless we assume there 'is' a moral value there, we are so naturally supposed to conclude that we make all those sacrificial decisions only because of economical benefits sooner or later. But I think excluding this assumption of existence of morality we easily lose many part of the truth. As for monkeys, I don't know. But at least as for humans, I believe we give up short-term advantages not just because we pursue a long-term and bigger rewards but also because we love and care for others and their emotions too. It could have happened because we care for the relationship.

[josephharte]

But it's not fair if you're earning 50K while the other guy is earning 25K for doing the same work. That's not a sense of fairness, it's a sense of superiority.