Monkeys Miss the Mark

A famous experiment during the dawn of behavioural sciences at a prestigious American University taught us a great deal about how we, or our ancestors at least, deal with change.

A bunch of scientist took six monkeys and placed them in a sealed laboratory. All their ordinary needs were met and they led happy lives. In the middle of the lab was a ladder which sat directly beneath a hatch in the ceiling. The scientists were going to assess how the group of monkeys would react as items of interest were placed through the hatch onto the top of the ladder.

In the first phase of the experiment they dropped food items through the hatch. Each time the hatch opened it would draw the attention of all the Monkeys and they would fight over the food, whatever it happened to be. Each opening produced displays of aggression and competition over getting the food.

In the second phase of the experiment, they added strong negative stimulus upon any monkey taking the food. They would spray cold water, flash strobe lights, and play extremely loud and grating sounds, to the displeasure of all monkeys. It was, in fact, such a negative stimulus that the monkeys developed a preference to avoid the noise over having the food, and so began to ignore the happenings at the hatch.

In the third phase of the experiment, the scientists swapped monkeys out. One of the original monkeys was replaced with a new monkey, who had seen neither the food nor the consequences of taking it, ever before. When the hatch opened, these new monkeys would instinctively go for the food, but would be forcibly restrained and prevented by the other inhabitants of the lab, who did not want to invoke the light and sound show.

Over time, all the original monkeys were swapped out, and so the experiment entered its most remarkable phase. In the lab there were six brand new monkeys. Not one of them had ever even experienced the negative stimulus before, but they still prevented any new monkey from going for the food under the hatch.

They did this for one simple reason - that is the way things had always been done…

The Point of it All

There are significant dangers in learning by wrote and performing a function simply via a set of steps without any foundational knowledge. More than that, there are extraordinary dangers to a tribalism that forces acceptance of a state of being without allowing others to test beliefs, or conducting regular belief testing of its own. It is a great little story that perfectly encapsulates how ridiculous thoughts like, ‘because that is how I was taught to do it,’ actually are.

For aspiring leaders in particular, it is a reminder about the importance of foundational understanding, and of regularly and critically reviewing what assumptions you are making in your areas of responsibility.

No monkeys were harmed in the conduct of this experiment, which is entirely fictitious.