Progressive Equal Pay and Capuchin Monkeys

“Most people are pretty happy with what they’ve got until they see what the other guy has got.” – Alfred E. Neumann, Mad Magazine
An article about “equal pay,” which appeared on my screen recently, caught my eye. The article was entitled, “What Happens When Two Monkeys are Paid Unequally for the Same Work?” The embedded video was clipped from a TED talk by Frans de Waal, primatologist, ethologist, and professor of primate behavior at Emory University, who talked about the “fairness study” as it involved the pillars of morality, reciprocity and empathy. His study was done with Capuchin monkeys who appeared to “reject unequal pay.” Continue reading