Someone related an experiment to me, and I’ve been unsuccessfully trying to document it:
Two primates (unrelated, but of the same species) are locked in individual cages, within view of each other. One primate’s cage is equipped with a lever that when pressed, delivers a food pellet to the animal pushing the lever, and an electric shock to the animal in the other cage.
Supposedly, once the primate with the lever figured out that pushing the lever had the unintended consequence of inflicting pain on his companion, he immediately went on a hunger strike…
Is there any evidence of such an experiment ever taking place?
I realize that this is my second animal-cruelty-related post in as many weeks - please don’t turn me in to PETA. I’m writing a paper about the claim that religion is a prerequisite for human morality, and am trying to document quasi-moral behaviors (Golden Rule, etc.) observable in non-human primates and other animals - behaviors that would be considered “moral” in a human social context, and are not easily explainable in evolutionary terms (parents dying to protect their offspring, etc). But I’m no biologist - I’d greatly appreciate any examples you all might offer.
I have no idea about your question, but I find the reverse of this experiment interesting. Supposing two primates were willing to shock themselves to get food, would they pull the lever if it shocked them but fed the companion? Would the other reciprocate?
Doesn’t seem like a reasonable experiment to me. Most animals don’t think very abstractly, so it would be an odd thing to test for, and above all, by hurting an animal. Maybe chimps and gorillas, the sign language and object language using ones (I know the validity of that research is controversial) would, but they’re too expensive to shock. The abstract thinking experiments I’ve seen on Nova and Nature are more along the lines of two animals co-operating to gain a food pellet for each. Though I don’t expect I’ll ever see shocks delivered to monkeys on PBS, not without endless disclaimers, but it still seems a wasteful way to test the premise.