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Do Animals Understand Fairness? Insights from Primate Research

Humans possess a remarkable ability to sense and protest against inequity, a trait that may have played a pivotal role in the evolution of human cooperation. Interestingly, research on primates suggests that they also exhibit a similar response to unequal treatment, indicating a potential shared behavior among primates, including humans. While some scientists question whether animals truly grasp the concept of fairness or if other factors are at play, recent primate studies shed light on the topic.

Source: TED Blog Video/YouTube

A study conducted on long-tailed macaques in Germany provides evidence that “social disappointment” may contribute to their response towards inequity with humans. The research, led by Stefanie Keupp and Rowan Titchener from the German Primate Center, explored how macaques react when receiving inferior rewards from humans compared to automated feeding machines.

The study involved four experimental conditions, including scenarios where a subject monkey received less-preferred food (fennel) from either a human experimenter or a machine. In other instances, while the subject monkey received fennel, a partner monkey in an adjacent cage received grapes, a superior reward, from either a human experimenter or the machine.

The results revealed that the macaques were more likely to reject the low-value food when it was provided by a human but accepted it from the machine. Notably, this refusal occurred consistently with humans, regardless of whether the partner monkey received a better reward or not. According to Titchener, this suggests that the macaques differentiate between humans and machines, attributing social expectations to humans while remaining unaffected by the actions of inanimate objects.

Understanding these behaviors in primates, including humans, has broader implications for comprehending human evolution. Titchener emphasizes that if certain behaviors are shared among primates, it indicates they likely evolved from a common ancestor and conferred survival advantages.

Sarah Brosnan, a distinguished university professor at Georgia State University, acknowledges that the German primate study adds a new dimension to previous findings on inequity aversion in primates. Brosnan suggests that the focus of the macaques on human reactions implies a social response, akin to human reactions to inequity in a social context.

Recent primate research offers valuable insights into animals’ potential understanding of fairness and inequity. The ability of macaques to distinguish between humans and machines and exhibit social disappointment toward humans provides evidence that social expectations may be a driving factor in their response to inequity. These findings contribute to our understanding of human evolution and highlight the deep-rooted differentiation between machines and other social beings.

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