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Everybody loves a fat pay rise.
人人都喜歡大幅加薪,
Yet pleasure at your own can vanish if you learn that a colleague has been given a bigger one.
但是當你知道同事的漲薪比自己多時,那么加薪的喜悅感就消失得無影無蹤了。
Indeed, if he has a reputation for slacking, you might even be outraged.
如果他還以懶散出名的話,你甚至會變得怒不可遏。
Such behaviour is regarded as “all too human, ” with the underlying assumption that other animals would not be capable of this finely developed sense of grievance.
這種行為被看作是“人之長情”,其潛在的假定其他動物不可能具有如此高度發達的不公平意識。
But a study by Sarah Brosnan and Frans de Waal of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, which has just been published in Nature, suggests that it is all too monkey, as well.
但是由佐治亞州亞特蘭大埃里莫大學的 Sarah Brosnan 和 Frans de Waal 進行的一項研究表明,它也是“猴之常情”。這項研究成果剛剛發表在《自然》雜志上。
The researchers studied the behaviour of female brown capuchin monkeys.
研究者們對雌性棕色卷尾猴的行為進行了研究。
They look cute.
它們看起來很可愛,
They are good-natured, co-operative creatures, and they share their food readily.
性格溫順,合作,樂于分享食物。
Above all, like their female human counterparts, they tend to pay much closer attention to the value of “goods and services” than males.
最重要的 是,就象女人們一樣,它們往往比雄性更關注“商品和服務”價值。
Such characteristics make them perfect candidates for Dr. Brosnan's and Dr. de Waal's study.
這些特性使它們成為 Brosnan 和 de Waal 博士的理想研究對象。
The researchers spent two years teaching their monkeys to exchange tokens for food.
研究者們花了兩年的時間教這些猴子用代幣換取食物。
Normally, the monkeys were happy enough to exchange pieces of rock for slices of cucumber.
正常情況下,猴子很愿意用幾塊石頭換幾片黃瓜。
However, when two monkeys were placed in separate but adjoining chambers,
但是,當兩個猴子被安置在隔開但相鄰的兩個房間里,
so that each could observe what the other was getting in return for its rock,
能夠互相看見對方用石頭換回來什么東西時,
their behaviour became markedly different.
猴子的行為就會變的明顯不同。
In the world of capuchins, grapes are luxury goods (and much preferable to cucumbers).
在卷尾猴的世界里,葡萄是奢侈品(比黃瓜受歡迎得多)。
So when one monkey was handed a grape in exchange for her token,
所以當一只猴子用一個代幣換回一顆葡萄時,
the second was reluctant to hand hers over for a mere piece of cucumber.
第二只猴 子就不愿意用自己的代幣換回一片黃瓜。
And if one received a grape without having to provide her token in exchange at all,
如果一只猴子根本無需用代幣就能夠得到一顆葡萄的話,
the other either tossed her own token at the researcher or out of the chamber, or refused to accept the slice of cucumber.
那么另外一只就會將代幣擲向研究人員或者扔出房間外,或者拒絕接受那片黃瓜。
Indeed, the mere presence of a grape in the other chamber (without an actual monkey to eat it) was enough to induce resentment in a female capuchin.
事實上,只要在另一房間里出現了葡萄(不管有沒有 猴子吃它),都足以引起雌卷尾猴的怨恨。
The researchers suggest that capuchin monkeys, like humans, are guided by social emotions.
研究人員指出,正如人類一樣,卷尾猴也受社會情感的影響。
In the wild, they are a co-operative, group-living species.
在野外,它們是相互合作的群居動物。
Such co-operation is likely to be stable only when each animal feels it is not being cheated.
只有當每只 猴子感到自己沒有受到欺騙時,這種合作才可能穩定。
Feelings of righteous indignation, it seems, are not the preserve of people alone.
不公平而引起的憤怒感似乎不是人類的專利。
Refusing a lesser reward completely makes these feelings abundantly clear to other members of the group.
拒絕接受較少的酬勞可以讓這些情緒準確無誤地傳達給其它成員。
However, whether such a sense of fairness evolved independently in capuchins and humans,
但是這種公平感是在卷尾猴和人類身上各自獨立演化而成,
or whether it stems from the common ancestor that the species had 35 million years ago, is, as yet, an unanswered question.
還是來自三千五百萬前他們共同的祖先,這還是一個懸而未決的問題。