Fairness

[j_b]

Dogs Understand Fairness, Get Jealous, Study Finds

 

by Nell Greenfieldboyce

 

Dogs have an intuitive understanding of fair play and become resentful if they feel that another dog is getting a better deal, a new study has found.

 

The study, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, looked at how dogs react when a buddy is rewarded for the same trick in an unequal way.

 

Friederike Range, a researcher at the University of Vienna in Austria, and her colleagues did a series of experiments with dogs who knew how to respond to the command "give the paw," or shake. The dogs were normally happy to repeatedly give the paw, whether they got a reward or not.

 

But that changed if they saw that another dog was being rewarded with a piece of food, while they received nothing.

 

"We found that the dogs hesitated significantly longer when obeying the command to give the paw," the researchers write. The unrewarded dogs eventually stopped cooperating.

 

Scientists have long known that humans pay close attention to inequity. Even little children are quick to yell "Not fair!" But researchers always assumed that animals didn't share this trait.

 

"The argument was that this is a uniquely human phenomenon," says Frans de Waal, a professor of psychology at Emory University in Atlanta and a researcher at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center.

 

That changed in 2003 when he and a colleague named Sarah Brosnan did a study on monkeys. Monkeys had to hand a small rock to researchers to get a piece of food in return. Monkeys were happy to do this to get a piece of cucumber. But the monkeys would suddenly act insulted to be offered cucumber if they saw that another monkey was getting a more delicious reward, a grape, for doing the same job.

 

"The one who got cucumber became very agitated, threw out the food, threw out the rock that we exchanged with them, and at some point just stopped performing," says de Waal.

 

In that experiment, the monkeys considered the fairness of two different types of payment. But when Range and her colleagues did a similar study with their trained dogs, testing to see if dogs would become upset if they only got dark bread when other dogs received sausage, they found that dogs did not make that kind of subtle distinction. As long as the dogs got some kind of food payment, even if it wasn't the yummiest kind, the animals would play along.

 

Dogs, like monkeys, live in cooperative societies, so de Waal was not surprised that they would have also some sense of fairness. He expects other animals do as well. For example, he says, lions hunt cooperatively, and he "would predict that lions would be sensitive to who has done what and what do they get for it."

 

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97944783&ps=rs

 

[billcoe]

Cool study, especially the dog thing.

 

I wonder what would happen if one group of Monkeys had to work their asses off and pay a lot in taxes so that the other monkey group could just sit on their fat monkey asses eating bananas all day.

[Stonehead]

I believe some of the new atheists such as Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris refer to these studies to support their belief that morality is derived from nature and in opposition to what is asserted by religion.

 

What might be even more interesting is the phenomenon of cheating and how to address that problem in any society. Did religion and its close cousin, law, derive partially from this basis? Is the fundamental basis of fairness ensured by some system of accountability and punishment? In other words, the recognition alone of fairness is not enough to ensure justice, no?

[billcoe]

I believe some of the new atheists such as Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris refer to these studies to support their belief that morality is derived from nature and in opposition to what is asserted by religion.

 

What might be even more interesting is the phenomenon of cheating and how to address that problem in any society. Did religion and its close cousin, law, derive partially from this basis? Is the fundamental basis of fairness ensured by some system of accountability and punishment? In other words, the recognition alone of fairness is not enough to ensure justice, no?

 

Interesting, but I'm withholding judgment until I hear from the monkeys about all this.

[JosephH]

Cooperation, competition, and cooptition are all in evidence in nature and I suspect 'fairness' is an enevitable outcome of cooperation as a survival strategy. I'd say that in competition, almost by definition, 'cheating' is a very peculiar notion and one which would have to be 'unnaturally' imposed on a system. Take life and feeding on a coral reef - it's a ghastly competition where eating without being eaten is the name of the game and there are no rules. What does 'cheating' even mean in that context?

 

How strange the notion of 'cheating' is in competition can also be seen again and again on Wall Street and in American corporate board rooms where we as a society attempt to impose 'fairness' where it is clearly as unnatural as 'fidelity' in Hollywoood or politics. You might get all warm and fuzzy talking about 'fairness' in competition, but that warm feeling could just as easily be either a dog or the chairman of Goldman Sachs pissing on your leg.

 

Or at least that's one monkey's opinion...

[j_b]

“… don’t believe anyone who says that since nature is based on a struggle for life, we need to live like this as well. Many animals survive not by eliminating each other or by keeping everything for themselves, but by cooperating and sharing. This applies most definitely to pack hunters, such as wolves or killer whales, but also our closest relatives, the primates. In a study in Taï National Park, in Ivory Coast, chimpanzees took care of group mates wounded by leopards, licking their blood, carefully removing dirt, and waving away flies that came near the wounds. They protected injured companions, and slowed down during travel in order to accommodate them. All of this makes perfect sense given that chimpanzees live in groups for a reason, the same way wolves and humans are group animals for a reason. If man is wolf to man, he is so in every sense, not just the negative one. We would not be where we are today had our ancestors been socially aloof.

 

“What we need is a complete overhaul of assumptions about human nature. Too many economists and politicians model human society on the perpetual struggle they believe exists in nature, but which is a mere projection. Like magicians, they first throw their ideological prejudices into the hat of nature, then pull them out by their very ears to show how much nature agrees with them. It’s a trick for which we have fallen for too long. Obviously, competition is part of the picture, but humans can’t live by competition alone.”

 

The Age of Empathy: Nature’s Lessons for a Kinder Society

by Frans de Waal. Harmony Books, 2009

Grieving elephants, sympathetic bonobos, grateful whales—nature is not always red in tooth and claw. In his latest book primatologist Frans de Waal draws on numerous examples from our fellow fauna, such as the chimpanzee in the anecdote below, to make his case that humans are hard-wired to be humane.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

“… don’t believe anyone who says that since nature is based on a struggle for life, we need to live like this as well. Many animals survive not by eliminating each other or by keeping everything for themselves, but by cooperating and sharing. This applies most definitely to pack hunters, such as wolves or killer whales, but also our closest relatives, the primates. In a study in Taï National Park, in Ivory Coast, chimpanzees took care of group mates wounded by leopards, licking their blood, carefully removing dirt, and waving away flies that came near the wounds. They protected injured companions, and slowed down during travel in order to accommodate them. All of this makes perfect sense given that chimpanzees live in groups for a reason, ...

 

 

Yeah, chimps are altruistic beings, incapable of violence to one another or the offspring of another male.

 

Nice selective quote from our resident moron, j_b.

 

 

[KaskadskyjKozak]

http://www.livescience.com/animals/070514_femchimp_killers.html

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7087194/

 

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11844-stressed-female-chimps-kill-rivals-young.html

 

With such exaustive research by j_b, and selection of sources, you can definitely discard anything he posts or quotes on any topic.

 

[j_b]

more evidence that our very own village idiot needs remedial reading comprehension.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

more evidence that our very own village idiot needs remedial reading comprehension.

 

You rival Kevbone in your myopic stupidity.

[j_b]

sez the quasi-monosyllabic idiot who has graced these pages with his insults for years.

[j_b]

so jackass, where did it say or implied anywhere in what I posted that chimps were "altruistic beings, incapable of violence to one another or the offspring of another male"?

[KaskadskyjKozak]

so jackass, where did it say or implied anywhere in what I posted that chimps were "altruistic beings, incapable of violence to one another or the offspring of another male"?

 

Read the article you fucktard. The author goes off on how the wonderful, sweet, altruistic chimps cooperate and take care of one another - something we humans should learn. Of course one-sided bias doesn't even register with the likes of you as that is how you view every issue.

 

[j_b]

cooperation and sharing have nothing to do with altruism, fuckwit. It's a survival strategy, not a matter of getting high on charity, moron.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

cooperation and sharing have nothing to do with altruism, fuckwit. It's a survival strategy, not getting high on charity, moron.

 

Read the quote. The author first talks about survival not always involving killing one another and taking everything for one's self - which is exactly what chimps do - to the extent of killing rival's young. The author is a moron - just like you. Now FOAD.

[j_b]

Jackass came up with a new theory to justify his twisted world view: chimps always kill one another and always take everything for themselves. Go figure.

[JosephH]

Nice selective quote from our resident moron, j_b.

So a couple of posts into a new thread and you have to come in slinging shit like some monkey? And he's the moron?

[j_b]

Frans de Waal's awards, aka "the moron" according to Jackass:

 

# 2010 Order of the Netherlands' Lion (knighted).

# 2009 Medal, Società di Medicina & Scienze Naturali, Parma (Italy)

# 2009 Medal, Ariëns Kappers (Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience)

# 2009 Doctor Honoris Causa, University for Humanistics (Netherlands)

# 2008 Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences

# 2007 Time Magazine 100 World’s Most Influential People Today

# 2005 Member of the American Philosophical Society

# 2005 Arthur W. Staats Award, American Psychological Foundation

# 2004 Member of the (US) National Academy of Sciences

# 1993 Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences

[rob]

[j_b]

right, instead of paying attention to what people like de Waal say, it's so much more "fun" to trade insults with people with grade school level reading comprehension.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

right, instead of paying attention to what people like de Waal say, it's so much more "fun" to trade insults with people with grade school reading comprehension.

 

“… don’t believe anyone who says that since nature is based on a struggle for life, we need to live like this as well. Many animals survive not by eliminating each other or by keeping everything for themselves, but by cooperating and sharing. This applies most definitely to pack hunters, such as wolves or killer whales, but also our closest relatives, the primates. In a study in Taï National Park, in Ivory Coast, chimpanzees took care of group mates wounded by leopards, licking their blood, carefully removing dirt, and waving away flies that came near the wounds. They protected injured companions, and slowed down during travel in order to accommodate them. All of this makes perfect sense given that chimpanzees live in groups for a reason, ...

 

Looks like your reading comprehension is what's at grade-school level.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

So a couple of posts into a new thread and you have to come in slinging shit like some monkey? And he's the moron?

 

Go back to patrolling your little park, Mr. Ranger boy.

[j_b]

[KaskadskyjKozak]

 

Hey, it's your Mom!

[prole]