Monkeys understand value better than humans because they arent fooled by expensive brands Everyone likes to think they’re good at grabbing a bargain and finding the best deals if Black Friday’s anything to go by, but new research shows there may be a better species of bargain-hunter in town. Monkey’s understand value better than humans because they know a higher price doesn’t always mean better, whereas people are distracted by the price tag. In studies of humans, using items from wine to painkillers, we almost always choose the highest priced item when asked to choose a product without having to pay. Surprisingly, our close primate cousins are also able to understand different pricing in a similar way to us. Researchers ran a study using food and when tested on which food item they chose if they didn’t have to pay, monkeys did not tend to choose the highest priced item like humans did. “We know that capuchin monkeys share a number of our own economic biases. Our previous work has shown that monkeys are loss-averse, irrational when it comes to dealing with risk, and even prone to rationalizing their own decisions, just like humans,” said Laurie Santos, a psychologist at Yale University and senior author of the study. “But this is one of [...] newsinlondon/monkeys-understand-value-better-than-humans-because-they-arent-fooled-by-expensive-brands/
Posted on: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 12:30:32 +0000
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