TED Talks Daily A monkey economy as irrational as ours | Laurie Santos
Apr 10, 2020
Laurie Santos, a Yale University psychology professor and host of 'The Happiness Lab', dives into the intriguing world of decision-making by studying our primate relatives. She reveals how monkeys make irrational financial choices similar to humans, exploring the concept of 'monkeynomics'. The discussion includes behavioral biases like loss aversion and examines whether our poor decisions are rooted in environmental factors or intrinsic flaws. Santos also suggests that technology could help us better navigate these evolutionary quirks in decision-making.
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Human Fallibility
- Humans are intelligent but also make dumb decisions consistently.
- This raises the question of whether the environment or human design is flawed.
Monkey Economics
- Capuchin monkeys, distant primate relatives, are used to study decision-making.
- They lack human technologies and culture, offering a controlled comparison.
Token Economy
- Monkeys were taught to use tokens as currency to purchase food from humans.
- They quickly grasped the concept of exchange, demonstrating an understanding of value.