Even decked out in cultural finery, people make monkeys of themselves. Maestripieri, a veteran monkey investigator, builds a fascinating and occasionally disturbing case for fundamental similarities in the social shenanigans of people, apes and monkeys due to a shared evolutionary heritage.
Maestripieri spies unspoken primate customs lurking in mundane human encounters. In a crowded elevator, people instinctively stand still and avoid eye contact, keeping their distance when only two remain. An ingrained need to defuse potential aggression when confined with strangers drives this behavior, Maestripieri argues. He has observed similar behavior in pairs of female macaques put in a small cage. To break the ice, the monkeys bare their teeth to signal fear and friendliness before grooming each other. It’s a short jump, he says, from caged macaques to two people in a high-rise elevator chatting nervously about the chance of rain.
Log in
Subscribers, enter your e-mail address for full access to the Science News archives and digital editions.