Wet Monkey Theory
 

I ran across this today: Wet Monkey Theory | Unreasonable Faith

If it can be recognized as a valid theory of behavior, it can be used as an allegory for many other phenomenon in culture. Hell, it could be a defining aspect OF culture. After all, culture is simply the collected experiences within a community that persist through generations.

Isn't that from an old joke? I don't see anything earth shattering about it, even if it were true.

As they say, monkey see, monkey do.

The fact that we're trained to do as we're told simply because we're told to?

Yeah, that's a pretty old joke...

Wouldn't this work better with fat people and candy as an allagory for human behavior?

For this "theory" to apply to human culture, it would have to include humans in its formulation. Hint:Christmas

Sounds like new employee orientation where I work.

It's a very interesting theory. It really is quite relevant to many different things like Politics and religion. I don't know if it's true, but It's been around FOREVER it seems. I'm actually more interested in continuing the experiment than I am with presented data. Someone on your source article said something like, What happened when another set of monkeys have their own banana and ladder and aren't punished when climbing the ladder? Will the other 5 monkeys with the forbidden banana start to think maybe it's OK to get their own banana? What about a group of monkeys that see the other monkeys get sprayed but don't get sprayed themselves, Will they learn by witnessing the event or do they really have to experience it?

HAH. HAH. Yeah.

I'm reading Rant by Chuck Palahniuk right now. Fairly early in that book, there's a bit about the lies parents tell kids. Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy. In increasing age, parents lie to kids about these three fantasy characters. And they get increasingly implausible, as the kid grows up. A man who brings toys. An intelligent animal that brings candy. A fantasy little person with wings that trades teeth for money. The point being that by the end of this process, childhood wonder has been replaced by a deep-seated faith in government-backed currency.

Has this experiment been conducted with the results described or is it, as the title says, a theory? It sounds more to me like an analogy of human social behavior wrapped up as a "theory" to rationalize the way we act. (and compare us to monkeys)

---------- Post added at 09:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:14 PM ----------

Conspiracy theory much?

it's the reason we go to work to earn our keep, we're corporate cogs because that's the way it's always been 'round our society.

You should read the book. I just finished it last night. It's amazing. IMO his best since (and maybe even including) Fight Club. There's a twist toward the end that completely alters how three characters coexist, and two of them knew it since the beginning, but as the reader, you're clueless until it's revealed. I'm going to have to go back and re-read it now, because it casts the whole first 3/4 of the book in a different light.

Just ordered it! Thanx!

Very interesting - It is remarkable to note the parallels that can be drawn from this experiment to the conditioning of human behavior. I feel like going to sit outside on a rock and scratching my... ampit... provided there's noone standing around nearby with a hosepipe.

Then they'll look over at the violent monkeys, three of them will wish there were a way to show them it's OK to get the banana, one will look down his nose at those three and say it's OK, because that's just the way monkeys do things over there, and the fifth will wait until one of the researchers accidentally knocks over his cage's ladder so he can't get to the banana, blame the other cage full of monkeys for the ladder incident, and convince the first three that the way to help the other monkeys is to beat the other cage's monkeys into submission, take their banana, and say, "see? you could have gotten the banana all along."

Wouldn't the monkeys fight eachother over who gets the banana first? I mean you have both punishment and positive reinforcement. I'd say that (also depending on how well they are fed), the monkeys wouldn't just try to prevent the others from getting it, but would want to get it themselves. Monkeys don't seem to strike me as being creatures who have surpassed the first moral stage. (Kohlberg's stages of moral development - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)