Source: By Dinesh 317 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0 )], via Wikimedia Commons

, exploitation, for scarce resources, whatever it takes to win, to advance their own self-interest—the daily news is filled with so many examples that it seems like normal behavior. After all, survival in the animal kingdom is based on aggression and dominance. But is it?

While reading Carl Sagan's and Ann Druyan’s Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, I was surprised to learn of a series of experiments done in 1964 that revealed something far beyond aggression and dominance. In their research at Northwestern University, Jules Masserman, Stanley Wechkin, and William Terris taught a group of rhesus monkeys to pull a chain to dispense a food pellet: pulling one chain in response to a red light and the other in response to a blue light. So for three days the monkeys pulled the chains to get their food. So far so good.

Then on the fourth day, one of the chains was programmed to administer a high-frequency electric shock to a monkey in the chamber next door, visible through a one-way mirror. Now when one monkey pulled the chain to get food, he or she saw a fellow monkey receive a painful shock. What happened next was remarkable. The vast majority of the monkeys, 87% in one experiment, then refused to pull the chain. They would rather go hungry than hurt the monkey next door.

With all the issues that divide us, with the lack of compassion looming large in the daily news, we have much to learn from these small creatures who would rather go hungry, rather starve than harm another of their own kind.

References

Masserman, Jules H., Wechkin, S., and Terris, W. (1964). “ ” behavior in rhesus monkeys. American Journal of , 121, 584-585.

Sagan, C. & Druyan, A. (1992). Shadows of forgotten ancestors: A search for who we are. New York, NY: Random House.

Wechkin, Stanley, Masserman, J. H. & Terris, W. (1964). Shock to a conspecific as an aversive stimulus. Psychonomic Science, 1, 47-48.

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Diane Dreher is a best-selling author, coach, and professor at Santa Clara University. Her latest book is Your Personal Renaissance: 12 Steps to Finding Your Life’s True Calling.

Visit her web sites at http://www.northstarpersonalcoaching.com/

and www.dianedreher.com