The Monkey Experiment: Shaping Society. Psychological experiments (Money, monkeys and prostitution) - kampai

Experimental biology can answer any question, provided that the experiment is designed in such a way that it can give an unambiguous answer. In fact, it is quite difficult to foresee all the little things, and it is rather difficult to calculate all the stages of the experiment.

In my opinion, a reference experiment has been published on the net for a long time, which gives us an answer to the main question - how our social taboos arise (religious, pagan, as well as daily rules of conduct, zabobons and superstitions). At first glance, how can one experimentally answer such philosophical questions, and even with the help of an experiment? It turns out - very simple, the main thing is to build the experience itself correctly:

Experience 1. There are five monkeys in a cage. A bunch of bananas is suspended from the ceiling, under them there is a ladder. Soon one monkey comes up to the stairs to go up for a banana. As soon as she tries to get up, suddenly all the monkeys (and those who are sitting on the sidelines) are poured with ice water under pressure. When the monkeys have calmed down, the other tries to get bananas again - and again all the monkeys pour themselves. After several repetitions, it develops conditioned reflex, and the monkeys are no longer interested in bananas on the ceiling - more expensive for themselves.

Experience 2. Several days passed, and in the cage one monkey was replaced with a new one. The new monkey saw the banana, and naturally wanted to get it. However, this attempt was severely suppressed by the old-timers of the cell. After a good beating, the newcomer realized - you can’t touch the bananas on the ceiling, and if she tries again, she will be severely punished. Note that no water has been used at this stage.

Experience 3. Experiment 2 was repeated until all five monkeys were replaced with new ones (which were never watered). But all beginners have already been taught that for some reason you can’t touch a banana. And when a new, sixth one was added to the “not drenched” monkeys, the effect was predictable: when the new one immediately climbed the stairs for a banana, she was beaten by relatives. Because you can't touch bananas.

After replacing all of the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys were splashed with cold water. However, none of them came up to the stairs to get the banana. Every time a new monkey tried to approach the ladder, it was stopped. Many of the monkeys that beat her didn't even know why they weren't allowed to climb that ladder and why they were beating the new monkey. They beat her simply because it was impossible!

In my opinion, this experience beautifully showed the nature of many of the taboos inherent in our society! If you think about it, many of the norms of our society look outdated. This is especially striking when you come to a country with a different culture, and look at the way of life with a "fresh look". And it is impossible to argue with people against their taboos laid down since childhood - you can easily find such disputes all over the Internet. Now you can try to analyze disputes with them from a new point of view - remembering the experience described above.

The second interesting result of this experiment is that taboos are inherent not only to people, but also to animals (at least, monkeys). Having carefully examined the conditions of the experiments, we see that nothing was done there that could not happen by chance in wild nature. And since I first learned about this experiment, I've been tracking similar news from zoologists.

Summing up, I consider this experience one of the most elegant, which provides answers to many questions that were previously considered the object of philosophers, thinkers - but certainly not experimenters.

P.S. Obligatory remark: it is clear that this experiment was carried out by psychologists or neurophysiologists, but I did not manage to find the original scientific article. Perhaps someone knows. where can i find the original?

UPD. Original found: Stephenson, G. R. (1967). Cultural acquisition of a specific learned response among rhesus monkeys. In: Starek, D., Schneider, R., and Kuhn, H. J. (eds.), Progress in Primatology, Stuttgart: Fischer, pp. 279-288. (

You won't find anything on the Internet. And now they sent first a link with a photo toad from vKontakte, and then in a presentation regarding young man I read on one local forum the same story.

We are talking about five monkeys that are sitting in a cage and a stepladder is brought to them, on the top of which a nutritious banana is temptingly hung. And when all the monkeys rush for a banana in a crowd, they are all doused with a stream of very cold water from a hose, as a result of which all the mawps tremble and scream wet.

Gradually, five monkeys develop a reflex and an understanding that if you climb a ladder for a banana, you will get a tub of cold water.

In children and adolescents, this phase is usually skipped because they need to tell quickly, without slowing down, and it seems unimportant to them. They start right away with the second one.

In the second phase of the experiment, the monkeys prefer not to twitch, licking their saliva at the corners of the cage. And if suddenly one impudent participant in the experiment suddenly decides to steal a banana on her own, then she instantly gets a tambourine from all the others who do not want to grab a stream of ice water in their face just because someone there wants a banana.

In the third phase, the evil experimenters take away one monkey and introduce another one into the group, which knows nothing about a jet of water, but only it rushes after a banana, which, by a strange coincidence, no one pays attention to, as it snatches from all four, some they know what will happen if the unknowing monkey gets to the banana.

After that, the experiment again changes the composition: they take another experienced primate and introduce a newcomer, who, of course, gets hit in the head the first time he tries to get a banana. And he receives, which is typical, not only from experienced comrades, but also from a monkey, which was recently introduced into the experiment and knows nothing about a stream of water.

Researchers go further and change all monkeys in such a cynical way. The experiment ends with the fact that all the monkeys, who have never been doused with water when trying to steal a banana, walk around the cage and independently stop any encroachments in his direction, beating all the sharp ones who put a bolt on the opinion of the team.

Because that's the way it is! - the children in VKontakte conclude. This is the real model of our society - exclaims another person representing the creative class without a doubt. And so on.

What is good about all these internets? They make those who want to think think. And be interested in the topic.

Such an experiment really took place. It was carried out with Rhesus poppies, which once helped mankind to learn about such a thing as the Rh factor. These Rhesus are generally often used for experiments.

A certain Gordon Stevenson back in 1967, based on the experiments of a whole group of researchers who studied the behavior, communication, learning and transfer of knowledge in various primates, suddenly suggested that everything was not so simple.

The cases of incredible borrowing and learning described by predecessors took place in the wild, where there is a high probability of an artifact and, in general, the influence of a person who is not a scientist. And I decided to test my not at all brilliant guesses in the laboratory.

In 1965, the Japanese studied the transfer of experience within a group of Japanese monkeys who successfully washed sweet potatoes on one of the Japanese islands. In the same year, there was a publication about the behavior of a group of baboons who had two members killed from a car. All members of the group did not specifically approach this car and eight months later, but reacted normally to other cars.

After it became clear that everything was not so simple with the Japanese experiment and the sweet potato, and it was even drawn to an artifact, the activity and enthusiasm of the researchers fell, and Stevenson became more active.

Much later, they returned to the topic raised: in 1992, Galef investigated the transfer of experience to solving a problem situation on the example of termite mounds, where the results were opposite; in 1999, the journal Nature has the results of observations of the seven longest studies of chimpanzee culture, the total duration of which is 151 years; in 2003, the same Nature published a publication with a catchy title Do animals have culture?; in 2005, another almost Research Article regarding the use of tools by chimpanzees and in 2007 the scientific publication Transmission of different traditions within and between groups of chimpanzees was published.

None of them contained anything about the amazing learning abilities of chimpanzees, group pressure, and other fun things more typical of isolated people living together for a long time. And even more. They are extremely low in comparison with other species. With the same fish and even ants.

Stevenson himself had not yet read these publications, but simply worked in the department of zoology, and not anthropology or psychology, as it might seem, at the University of Madison in Wisconsin. Excellent school there, I will report to you! May Wisconsin...

Now imagine that in the cell to the prisoners who are being watered from a hose for open window, experimenters throw a deaf-mute provocateur to an isolated group of experienced people, inexperienced people are added one at a time, who either really do not understand or do not want to understand the complexity of the situation. And everything will become easy.

Read more books.

Several demonstrative experiments of behavioral psychology of animals. The conclusions made by the researchers quite accurately describe the social model of human behavior.

EXPERIENCE WITH CHIMPANS

Experience #1

Cell. It has 5 monkeys. A bunch of bananas is tied to the ceiling. Below them is a staircase. Hungry, one of the monkeys approached the stairs with the obvious intention of getting a banana. As soon as she touches the stairs, the faucet opens and ALL the monkeys are doused with very cold water.

A little time passes, and another monkey tries to eat a banana. Same ice water. The third monkey, stupefied with hunger, tries to get a banana, but the others grab it, not wanting a cold shower.

Now, remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new monkey. She immediately, noticing the bananas, tries to get them. To her horror, she sees the angry faces of the other monkeys attacking her. After the third attempt, she realized that she would not be able to get a banana.

Now remove one more of the original five monkeys from the cage and put in a new one. As soon as she tried to get a banana, all the monkeys attacked her in unison, and the one that was replaced first (and even with enthusiasm).

And so, gradually replacing all the monkeys, you will come to a situation where there are 5 monkeys in the cage, which were not watered at all, but which will not allow anyone to get a banana.

Experience #2

There are 5 chimpanzees in an empty room. There is a ladder in the center of the room with a banana on top. When the first monkey spots a banana, it follows it up the stairs to grab it and eat it. But as soon as she approaches the fruit, a jet of icy water falls on her from the ceiling and knocks her down. Other monkeys are also trying to climb the stairs. Everyone is knocked down by a jet of cold water, and they give up trying to take the banana.

The water is turned off, and one soaked monkey is replaced with a new, dry one. Before she has time to enter, the old ones try to prevent her from climbing the stairs so that she, too, is doused with water. The new monkey doesn't understand what's going on. She sees only a group of brothers preventing her from taking a delicious fruit. Then she tries to break through by force and fights with those who do not want to let her through. But she is alone, and the four former monkeys take over.

Another wet monkey is replaced with a new dry one. As soon as she appears, the predecessor, thinking that this is how newcomers should be met, jumps on her and beats her. The beginner does not even have time to notice the stairs and the banana, he is already out of the game.

Then the third, fourth and fifth soaked monkeys are replaced in turn with dry ones. Every time newbies show up, they get beat up. Reception becomes every time more and more cruel. The monkeys all together rush at the newcomer, as if trying to improve the ritual technique.

In the finale, there is still a banana on the stairs, but five dry monkeys are stunned by the constant fight and do not even think to approach the fruit. Their only concern is to keep an eye on the door, from where a new monkey will appear, in order to attack it sooner.

SELF-LIMITATION OF FLEA

Here you point to one of the biggest problems of mankind. Very few people are able to understand what is happening. They say what their parents told them, then the teachers at school, what they saw on the evening news. Finally, they convince themselves that this is their own opinion, which they defend with fervor if they are contradicted. However, they could look and think to see the world as it really is, and not as they want to show it.

How to make fleas jump higher than they are used to?
(B. Werber, “We, the gods”).

HIERARCHY IN RATS

Two exploited rats dived into the water for food. Upon returning to the cage, the two exploiters beat them until they gave up their food. Only when they were full did the exploited have the right to eat after them. The exploiters never sailed. They limited themselves to the fact that they constantly gave swimmers a beating in order to eat their fill.

The autonomus was a strong enough swimmer to get food himself and, without giving it to the exploiters, to eat it himself. Finally, the scapegoat could not swim and intimidate the exploiters, so he ate the remaining crumbs.

The same division—two exploiters, two exploited, one autonomist, one scapegoat—reappeared in the twenty cells where the experiment was repeated.

To better understand this mechanism of hierarchization, Didier Desor placed six exploiters together. They fought all night. The next morning the same roles were distributed. Two exploiters, two exploited, a scapegoat, autonomous. The researcher obtained the same result by placing six exploited, six autonomous and six scapegoats in one cell.

Whatever the individuals, they always eventually distribute roles among themselves. The experiment was continued in a large cage, where two hundred rats were placed. They fought all night. In the morning, three flayed rats were found crucified on a net. Moral: the larger the population, the more cruelty towards scapegoats.

At the same time, the exploiters in a large cage have created a hierarchy of deputies to impose their power through them, and do not even bother themselves by directly terrorizing the exploited.

The Nancy researchers continued the experiment by examining the brains of the test subjects. They concluded that it was not the scapegoats or the exploited who experienced the greatest stress, but quite the contrary, the exploiters. They no doubt feared losing their privileged status and being forced one day to start working themselves.

BROUGHT HELELESS

Academician Pavlov's followers set up an experiment on dogs. The experiment was carried out in this way.

Three identical dogs were placed in three cages.

The first dog was tormented with an electric shock, and she could not do anything about it. The second dog was also beaten with electricity, but there was a button in its cage, by pressing which it was possible to stop the torture. Nothing was done to the third dog (control).

As expected, when the current was applied, the first and second dogs ran around in their cages. The second dog quickly found the button and turned off the electricity. The first dog tried for a long time to get out of the cage, but eventually gave up, lay down on the floor and whined plaintively. The third dog was yawning and scratching at that time.

Then all three dogs were moved to other cages. The new cages had walls of only half a meter, and the dogs could easily jump out of them. After placing the test subjects in the cages, the cruel scientists turned on the electricity again.

The third dog, which was not tortured at all, immediately jumped out of the cage. The second dog, which turned off the electricity with its paw, rummaged through the cage in search of a button and, not finding it, also jumped out. The first dog... lay down on the floor of the cage and began to whine plaintively.

Animal psychologists called the state of the first dog "bred helplessness". The dog realized that the world is cruel, and she cannot change it. Therefore, the dog did not try to jump out of the cage - she knew that she would not succeed - it was impossible to stop the burning electricity.

Experience #1



Cell. It has 5 monkeys. A bunch of bananas is tied to the ceiling. Below them is a staircase. Hungry, one of the monkeys approached the stairs with the obvious intention of getting a banana. As soon as she touches the stairs, the faucet opens and ALL monkeys are poured with very cold water. A little time passes, and another monkey tries to eat a banana. Same ice water. The third monkey, stupefied with hunger, tries to get a banana, but the others grab it, not wanting a cold shower. Now, remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new monkey. She immediately, noticing the bananas, tries to get them. To her horror, she sees the angry faces of the other monkeys attacking her. After the third attempt, she realized that she would not be able to get the banana. Now remove one more of the original five monkeys from the cage and put in a new one. As soon as she tried to get a banana, all the monkeys attacked her in unison, and the one that was replaced first (and even with enthusiasm). And so, gradually replacing all the monkeys, you will come to a situation where there are 5 monkeys in the cage, not watered, but which will not allow anyone to get a banana.

Experience #2

There are 5 chimpanzees in an empty room. There is a ladder in the center of the room with a banana on top. When the first monkey spots a banana, it follows it up the stairs to grab it and eat it. But as soon as she approaches the fruit, a jet of icy water falls on her from the ceiling and knocks her down. Other monkeys are also trying to climb the stairs. Everyone is knocked down by a jet of cold water, and they give up trying to take a banana. The water is turned off, and one soaked monkey is replaced with a new, dry one. Before she has time to enter, the old ones try to prevent her from climbing the stairs so that she, too, is doused with water. The new monkey doesn't understand what's going on. She sees only a group of brothers preventing her from taking a delicious fruit. Then she tries to break through by force and fights with those who do not want to let her through. But she is alone, and the four old monkeys take over. Another wet monkey is replaced by a new dry one. As soon as she appears, the predecessor, thinking that this is how newcomers should be met, jumps on her and beats her. The beginner does not even have time to notice the stairs and the banana, he is already out of the game. Then the third, fourth and fifth wet monkeys are replaced in turn with dry ones. Every time newbies show up, they get beat up. Reception becomes every time more and more cruel. The monkeys all rush at the newcomer together, as if trying to improve the ritual technique. In the finale, there is still a banana on the stairs, but five dry monkeys are stunned by the constant fight and do not even think to approach the fruit. Their only concern is to keep an eye on the door, from where a new monkey will appear, in order to attack it sooner.

(about how the Moscow princes, who won the negative selection for sycophancy before the Horde and meanness before their brothers, destroyed the Novgorod and Pskov republics) once again read about the experiment with monkeys, bananas and an ice shower. Everyone knows this story: several monkeys are put in a cage, bananas are hung on a hook, and cold water is poured over the entire group as soon as one of the monkeys tries to reach the bananas. After some time, attempts to get a banana stop. Then one monkey is changed to a new, naive monkey, which, of course, immediately reaches for a banana, but immediately receives a kumpol from the rest, and gradually stops reaching. So in turn they replace all the monkeys, and as a result, monkeys sit in the cage, they have never experienced ice shower, but obediently ignoring the bait.

This seemingly beautiful and instructive experiment is widely known, and profound conclusions are usually drawn from it; here, admire the thousands of books on the so-called. "management" in which this story is retold. Nevertheless, there has never been such an experiment, all this is fiction and complete nonsense.

I followed this myth through Google Books, looking for the original link, and was impressed. It seems that this pseudo-experiment was first mentioned in the book Hamel & Prahalad, Competing for Future, 1994. There is no reference there, and the presentation of this plot begins like this: "A friend of us once described an experiment with monkeys ...". What elegance! Further, this fiction was replicated in hundreds of books and thousands of articles. Probably Prominent Management Specialists.

Perhaps this story is partly based on this half-forgotten experiment, which is briefly mentioned in the review (I could not find the original article) B. Galef, Social Transmission of Acquired Behavior, 1976, but the connection, if any, is minimal.

Stephenson (1967) trained adult male and female rhesus monkeys to avoid manipulating an object and then placed individual naïve animals in a cage with a trained individual of the same age and sex and the object in question. In one case, a trained male actually pulled his naïve partner away from the previously punished manipulandum during their period of interaction, whereas the other two trained males exhibited what were described as "threat facial expressions while in a fear posture" when a naïve animal approached the manipulandum. When placed alone in the cage with the novel object, naïve males that had been paired with trained males showed greatly reduced manipulation of the training object in comparison with controls. Unfortunately, training and testing were not carried out using a discrimination procedure so the nature of the transmitted information cannot be determined, but the data are of considerable interest.

At the same time, I briefly looked at publications on culture in animals (when some individuals learn from others some skill that the species as a whole does not have). It is known that some songbirds have something similar: different populations of the same species can have slightly different songs (“dialects”, see wiki), and the chicks learn from their parents. But I didn't know that (a) this has also been proven for some species of fish and whales; (b) about monkeys, including chimpanzees, disputes have been going on for 60 years. Below are several articles with citations, in chronological order.

1. M. Kawai, Newly-acquired Pre-cultural Behavior of the Natural Troop of Japanese Monkeys on Koshima Islet, 1965
http://www.springerlink.com/content/h191628m5u23g7jt/fulltext.pdf

Sweet-potato washing is an example of pre-culture characteristic of the troop of monkeys in Koshima (a small islet in Miyazaki Prefecture, Kyushu). ... Kawamura and I observed the habit of sweet-potato washing occurred in the Koshima troop in 1953.

Review of the literature on problem solving by captive primates, and detailed consideration of two widely cited instances of purported learning by imitation and of culture in free-living primates (sweet-potato washing by Japanese macaques and termite fishing by chimpanzees), suggests that nonhuman primates do NOT learn to solve problems by imitation.

Here we present a systematic synthesis of this information from the seven most long-term studies, which together have accumulated 151 years of chimpanzee observation. This comprehensive analysis reveals patterns of variation that are far more extensive than have previously been documented for any animal species except humans. We find that 39 different behavior patterns. including tool usage, grooming and courtship behaviors, are customary or habitual in some communities but are absent in others where ecological explanations have been discounted. Among mammalian and avian species, cultural variation has previously been identified only for single behavior patterns, such as the local dialects of song-birds. The extensive, multiple variations now documented for chimpanzees are thus without parallel.

...for which species do we have reliable scientific evidence of natural communities that share group-typical behavior patterns that are dependent on socially learned and transmitted information? The answer, which will surprise many, is humans plus a handful of species of birds, one or two whales, and two species of fish. No doubt many readers will find this conclusion disturbing, while primatologists will probably be up in arms. How can we attribute culture status to fish and not chimpanzees? A full explanation will follow, but the short answer is that for chimpanzees, as for other nonhuman primates, the hard evidence that their "cultures" are socially learned is not yet there. ... Neither evidence of group-typical behavior patterns nor a demonstration that the species is capable of social learning is in itself strong evidence for culture.
...
If we were to say which animals we believe have culture, based on our knowledge of animal social learning, observations of natural behavior of animals, intuition, and the laws of probability, we would say that many hundreds of species of vertebrates have culture.
...
To our knowledge these experiments have not been carried out in a systematic and rigorous manner in any nonhuman primates. What is more, in many cases, including for chimpanzees, it is difficult to envisage that they will. Not only would such experiments be extraordinarily expensive, and present enormous logistical challenges, but many people would regard such manipulations as unethical. consequently, the claim that nonhuman primate populations exhibit culture rests exclusively on observations of natural populations in situ.
...
While primatologists are forced to resort to circumstantial evidence for culture... other experimental researchers are free to employ more direct methods. Helfman and Shultz translocated French grunts (Haemulon flavolineatum) between populations and found that while those fish placed into established populations adopted the same schooling sites and migration routes as the residents, control fish introduced into regions from where the residents had been removed did not adopt the behavior of former residents.
...
The primate-centric brainist bias is well illustrated by a reconsideration of one of the most well-known cases of animal social learning, that of sweetpotato washing by Japanese macaques. ... There is no evidence that food washing spread through Imo’s troop by imitation, teaching, or any unusually sophisticated form of social learning. Indeed, there are grounds for concern that it may even have been an artifact of human provisioning.

Here we show that experimentally introduced technologies will spread within different ape communities. Unobserved by group mates, we first trained a high-ranking female from each of two groups of captive chimpanzees to adopt one of two different tool use techniques for obtaining food from the same 'Pan-pipe' apparatus, then re-introduced each female to her respective group. All but two of 32 chimpanzees mastered the new technique under the influence of their local expert, whereas none did so in a third population lacking an expert.

Here, we provide robust experimental evidence that alternative foraging techniques seeded in different groups of chimpanzees spread differentially not only within groups but serially across two further groups with substantial fidelity. Combining these results with those from recent social-diffusion studies in two larger groups offers the first experimental evidence that a nonhuman species can sustain unique local cultures, each constituted by multiple traditions. The convergence of these results with those from the wild implies a richness in chimpanzees’ capacity for culture...