The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos Hidden Brain: Laurie Talks Monkeys and Bad Money Decisions.
May 10, 2021
Laurie Santos, a Yale psychology and cognitive science professor, dives into the fascinating world of monkey behavior and its parallels to human financial decisions. She illustrates how monkeys exhibit surprising economic rationality in experiments, mirroring our cognitive biases like loss aversion. The conversation also explores the monkeys' sense of fairness, revealing essential insights about human inequality. With humor and scientific depth, Santos challenges perceptions of human uniqueness in cognition, shedding light on our evolutionary roots.
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Monkey Thieves
- Monkeys on Cayo Santiago, where Laurie Santos conducts research, often steal from researchers.
- They strategically target individuals who are not paying attention, demonstrating rational theft.
Monkey Math
- Monkeys, similar to human infants, possess a basic understanding of arithmetic.
- They demonstrate surprise when simple addition problems yield unexpected outcomes, suggesting innate math skills.
Perspective-Taking Monkeys
- Contrary to prior beliefs, monkeys demonstrate an understanding of others' perspectives.
- They anticipate where someone will reach for an object based on what the individual has seen.