Comments on: Monkeys are more complicated than you’d think

By: Massen

Massen — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 11:35:38 +0000

@ Douglas Knight: your interpretation is correct, however, I do not see that the text doesn’t say that.

@ bbartlog: the number 2 monkey is the alfa female, maybe that changes your interpretation a bit.

@ Razib: indeed they shoul pay for more ethologists.

@ Emerson: so much to read, so little time and so little room in such a research article.

By: Douglas Knight

Douglas Knight — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 22:15:04 +0000

TGGP,

I guess 20 monkeys were tested with non-kin (solid circles) and 10 of them were also tested with kin (open circles), but that’s not quite what the text of the article says.

By: TGGP

TGGP — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 20:27:48 +0000

What does the color of the dots indicate?

By: bbartlog

bbartlog — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 17:03:47 +0000

I think it’s very interesting that it’s specifically the number 2 monkey that is the *most* pro-social. Not that you can base an academic paper on one monkey but theoretically something like this makes sense if we assume the number one monkey is reaping the rewards of position while the number two monkey is trying hard to demonstrate his worth.

By: John Emerson

John Emerson — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 18:10:16 +0000

You were probably talking to Razib, but Fried: “The evolution of Political Society”, Sahlins: “Stone Age Economics”, Mauss: “The Gift”, and Black-Michaud: “Cohesive Force” are all good.

By: Fulana

Fulana — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:27:22 +0000

Please point me to the links for the new research you don’t cite. Thanks!

By: John Emerson

John Emerson — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:17:22 +0000

Surprisingly, pro-social behavior is not used by subordinates to obtain benefits from dominants, but by dominants to emphasize their dominance position.

This is the largesse model characteristic of many early societies — patron-client, warrior bands, big man societies, potlatch rituals, etc. By giving you incur obligations which are repaid with submission and support. The submissive are called “dependents”, “retainers”, “clients”, etc.

A very small amount of reading in political anthropology would have improved that paper: Marcel Mauss, Morton Fried, Marshall Sahlins, or any of a large number of many others.

An ev-psych explanation of this is not to be dismissed, but a game-theoretical look at how large groups can be organized out of independent units would be illuminating too.