#163 Sarah Brosnan: Morality, Reciprocity, Fairness, and Property in Primates
Dr. Sarah Brosnan is a Professor in the departments of psychology and philosophy and the Neuroscience Institute at Georgia State University. She is also a member of the Brains & Behavior program and the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience. She directs the Comparative Economics and Behavioral Studies Laboratory (CEBUS Lab) and does research with nonhuman primates at both the Language Research Center of Georgia State University and the Michale E. Keeling Center for Comparative Medicine and Research of the University of Texas Anderson Cancer Center. She studies the mechanisms underlying cooperation, reciprocity, inequity, and other economic decisions in nonhuman primates from an evolutionary perspective. She looks at the decisions individuals make and how they make them, how their social or ecological environments affect their decisions and interactions, and under what circumstances they can alter their behaviors depending on these conditions.
In this episode, we talk about biology, comparative psychology, and moral behavior. First, Dr. Brosnan tells us about the primates that she studies the most and the sorts of behaviors she’s most interested in. Then, we discuss how to properly do comparative psychology, and compare the behavior of humans to other species, particularly primates. We also talk about what is morality from a biological perspective and its functions. And very important to understand morality are the processes of kin selection, reciprocal altruism, and the contentious topic of group selection. After that, we talk about some specific moral behaviors, like inequity aversion and the sense of fairness, and the endowment effect and the sense of property, in nonhuman primates.
Time Links:
The primates Dr. Brosnan studies, and the types of behavior she’s most interested in
Morality and moral behavior
How to properly do comparative psychology
What is necessary to have moral behavior?
The functions of morality
On group selection
Reciprocal altruism
Inequity aversion and sense of fairness in primates
The evolutionary relevance of emotions
Philogeny and ontogeny, evolution and development
Economics games to study animal behavior
The endowment effect and a sense of property
Comparing humans to other primates in their cognition and morality
Should chimps make economic decisions for us?
Follow Dr. Brosnan’s work!
Follow Dr. Brosnan’s work:
Faculty page: https://tinyurl.com/y3vdpekn
Personal Website: https://www.sarah-brosnan.com/
Articles by topic: https://tinyurl.com/y22qqhf9
Articles on Researchgate: https://tinyurl.com/y2hll7r2
Book chapters: https://tinyurl.com/y3ucvcfq
Two Monkeys Were Paid Unequally: Excerpt from Frans de Waal’s TED Talk: https://tinyurl.com/btclptx
Interview w/ Dr. Frans de Waal: https://tinyurl.com/y6n2l2rg