Humans aren’t the only gamblers in the animal kingdom.
Our closest primate relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos, demonstrate behaviors considered basic to human economics such as delaying gratification and assessing risk, according to new research published Wednesday May 29 in the journal PLoS One.
Though they don’t bet on stock exchanges or casinos, they also have strong emotional reactions to games of chance — like when they are betting on food showing up. They don’t like losing or waiting for payouts, and can even correct their own behaviors based on successes or failures.
“Apes are also experiencing rich emotional reactions in an economic context,” study researcher Alexandra Rosati, of Yale University, said in a statement. “They are making decisions about their most valuable resource, which is food.”
“Even though economists can be quite puzzled about human behavior and what it means, biology suggests that these economic biases have their roots in non-human foraging behaviors,” Rosati said. (more…)
