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To illustrate how monkeys make economic decisions, Glimcher's former
colleague Michael Platt, now at Duke, has investigated how they value
status within their troop. Male monkeys have a distinct dominance
hierarchy, and Platt has found they will give up a considerable
quantity of fruit juice for the chance just to look at a picture of a
higher-ranking individual. This is consistent with field observations,
Platt says, which have found that social primates spend a lot of time
just keeping track of the highest-ranking troop member. It isn't known
exactly why monkeys do this, but the finding might help explain the
behavior of human beings who pay $1,000 just to sit in a hotel
ballroom with the president. You can draw whatever conclusion you
choose from Platt's finding that there is no quantity of juice
sufficient to get a male monkey to look away from the hindquarters of
a female in estrus.
		-- Jerry Adler, "Mind Reading", from
		   Newsweek, 2004-08-09
		   http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5570554/site/newsweek/

Tags: conclusion monkey duke colleague humanbeings primates newsweek fruitjuice mindreading hindquarters estrus fieldobservations hotelballroom msnbc economicdecisions troopmember jerryadler michaelplatt malemonkeys dominancehierarchy