Can Five Monkeys Explain Your Behaviour?
Why do we act the way we act?
Everything we do in our lives has a justification behind it.
Sometimes, such justification is sentimental: for example, if you are in love with your boyfriend, you invite him to dinner.
On other occasions, the justification for our decisions and behaviors is rational, or so we tell ourselves at least. For example, when you go to a store and must choose between products of various models and brands, you end up buying the one you consider — rationally — the best.
More explanations for human behavior can be found relatively easily. However, the explanation I am interested in delving into is perhaps the most curious and interesting: social justification.
The human being is a social being. He was born to develop and live in community. Of course, this has a series of consequences. Among these is the fact that we often act as we do simply to fit into society.
The best way to approach this is through an example involving some animals with which we share an ancestor: monkeys
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THE FIVE MONKEYS EXPERIMENT
Ingenious scientists placed five monkeys in a cage, and in the middle of the cage a ladder with a banana at the top.
Each time one of the monkeys climbed the ladder and picked up a banana, the scientists would shower the other four monkeys with cold water, causing them to become angry.
After several days, every time a monkey tried to climb the ladder, the rest physically assaulted the hungry monkey.
Finally, none of the five monkeys dared to climb, despite the delicious temptation.
At this point, the scientists expelled one of the five original monkeys, replacing it with a new monkey. Of course, the first thing the new monkey wanted to do was to climb up and eat the banana, but the other four beat him up before he could do so.
After several attempts at climbing, with their violent consequences, the new monkey understood that he should not climb the stairs, although he never knew why.
A second monkey of the original five was substituted, and the same thing happened. In fact, the sixth monkey (the first substitute) even participated in the fight.
Substitutions continued until there were five monkeys completely different from the original five.
Of the five remaining monkeys, none ever tried the banana. None tried to climb the ladder. All participated in the beatings of the new monkeys. However, none ever received a shower of cold water.
If you could ask any of the monkeys why they beat up anyone who dared to climb, none of them could give a coherent answer. They would probably reply that it’s just the way things are done in that cage.
The monkeys acted according to society, without questioning themselves why.
The justification for their behavior was neither rational nor emotional: it was social.
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Unfortunately, the reality is that there is no evidence that this Monkey Experiment ever took place.
However, it could be said that, after all, the alleged experiment is about monkeys, and that humans are not like that… right?
Evidently, human reality surpasses any fiction and a similar experiment was performed with humans, obtaining identical results to the five monkeys experiment. The experiment is available at the following link: Brain Games Conformity Waiting Room — YouTube
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The same moral can be drawn from both the Monkey Experiment and the Waiting Room Experiment: animals act to fit into society. The simplest behavior is to imitate the group in order to fit in.
In deed, the internalization of a social behavior without questioning the reason for such behavior helps us to achieve a sense of belonging to a community. It is a kind of self-defense mechanism. We feel good when we do what everyone else does.
On a daily basis, we humans behave by faithfully following social patterns without questioning them. If not, ask yourself why you upload a photo to a social network when you are in a gym or at a dinner. In most cases the answer is simple: because everyone else does it
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That´s all for today!
