Newsgroup: it.discussioni.animali.cani
Titolo: Morale e animali diversi dall'uomo

Si e' spesso criticato, in questo newsgroup, il mio modo un po' naive (modo 
di cui vado orgoglioso, in realta', quando parlo d cani) di descrivere 
qualita' quali la bonta' presenti nei cani. Fondamentalmente, tra i 
"cinofili", c'e' questa convinzione che la morale sia qualcosa che esiste 
solo tra gli uomini.
Ebbene, anche sperimentalmente, pare che non sia cosi' :
(Dal Dallas News Star, 19 settembre 2003, citando un articolo uscito 
sull'ultima edizione di Nature) 
When rewarded similarly for the same task _ in this case, exchanging a small 
rock with a scientist _ capuchin monkeys worked happily for a slice of 
cucumber. But after they witnessed a partner getting a coveted, succulent 
grape for the bit of granite, the cucumber-paid monkeys took offense.
Some went on strike. Some kept halfheartedly doing the work, but refused to 
accept the stinkin' cucumber. 
"There were none that didn't care," said Sarah Brosnan, a graduate student at 
Emory University in Atlanta. A description of her experiment, conducted with 
Emory's Frans de Waal, appears Thursday in the journal Nature.
If primates offer a window to the origin of human behavior, the findings 
suggest that people may be born with a strong, primal reaction to unfair 
rewards. The researchers even have a term for it: "inequity aversion."
The monkeys "respond negatively to previously acceptable rewards if a partner 
gets a better deal," they wrote in the journal. "Although our data cannot 
elucidate the precise motivations underlying these responses, one possibility 
is that monkeys, similarly to humans, are guided by social emotions."
Dr. de Waal and his colleagues have studied capuchin monkeys before, finding, 
among other things, that profit-sharing is a strong motivator in monkey work 
situations.
For the new experiment, the scientists divided a group of female monkeys into 
pairs. For the first few rounds, both monkeys in each pair were rewarded with 
cucumbers. To get the prize, the monkey had to place the rock token in 
Brosnan's hand. More than 95 percent of the time, each did so readily.
She then began paying one monkey partner with a grape. The rate of successful 
exchange for the monkeys paid in cucumbers quickly fell to 60 percent.
Sometimes the slighted monkey wouldn't give up the token. Other times, in a 
more dramatic show of disgust, it would throw the cucumber out of the testing 
area. The latter reaction was especially striking to the researchers _ that a 
payoff that had been perfectly fine earlier suddenly became unacceptable.
The worst rate of token exchange occurred when the monkey witnessed a partner 
getting a better reward for performing less work. (Brosnan would simply hand 
the other monkey a grape, with no need for a token.) In that part of the 
experiment, the overworked, underpaid monkey would hand over the rock or take 
the cucumber only about 20 percent of the time.
"This is the first experimental test to look at a sense of fairness in any 
animal," Brosnan said. The results suggest that fairness may be an artifact 
of evolution, something that has soaked into the primate psyche over eons.
Many researchers have looked at reactions to inequity in the human animal, 
finding that cucumber-style wages in a grape-paying workplace can affect 
turnover, morale or even worker health.
"I think we all react to it in a negative way," said Jason Shaw of the 
University of Kentucky in Lexington, who has studied fairness in pay issues. 
"No one likes it."
But how each person responds is a complicated picture, he said, influenced by 
the employee's life situation and budget. Some employees, like the monkeys 
who simply stopped handing over the tokens, look for other jobs. Others with 
more limited options keep working, but often find their mental and physical 
health suffering, Shaw said. Those with the greatest financial need find 
themselves most profoundly affected, he said.
Brosan said she hopes experiments like hers will help social scientists 
understand the deeply emotional reactions to unfairness. Cultural influences 
may modify responses, but biology might also dictate certain levels of 
resentment. She's hoping that similar experiments in chimpanzees, humans' 
closest living relatives, might add insight to this behavior.
"We can say it's evolved," she said about an innate sense of fairness, "but 
we can't say what parts are human."
ciao,
alessandro

 sull'ultima edizione di Nature)
CUT

 Gracias
in supersintesi: delle scimmie cappuccine hanno dimostrato di possedere un 
senso di percezione di equita'/giustizia.
ciao,
alessandro