cluelessresearch.com

In the United States, only in two states is prostitution legal: Nevada and (gasp!) Rhode Island. It is commonly referred to as the “oldest profession in the world”, but not much evidence is presented to support that fact. Finally, it seems that a group of Yale researchers has found some evidence by studying Capuchin monkeys.

The researchers (M. Keith Chen, and economist, and psychologists Venkat Lakshminarayanan and Laurie R. Santos) were interested in finding out if species other than humans also act in market-like fashion, and/or exhibit similar biases to those observed among us. They ended up observing behavior that might support the “oldest profession” contention, I think. You see, like a more than a couple of Homo sapiens I know, Capuchin monkeys are exclusively focused on food and sex. The researchers intended to use their food seeking behavior to study their actions when currency and trade are introduced in their environment.

The research was published at the June 2006 issue of the Journal of Political Economy (link to the paper), and has been discussed in the Freakonomics blog.

It turns out that the, ahem, other interests of the Capuchin monkeys showed up in their research as well. Stephen J. Dubner, the other freakonomic, tells the story during a keynote at the AIIM Expo:

The topper to Dubner’s stories to the AIIM audience involved an
incident in which one of the capuchins threw a tray of washers that
ended up spilling into the general population area. The monkeys, as
expected, fought for the coins and, except for one, were easily bribed
with the opportunity to purchase food in order for researchers to get
the washers back.

‘Out of the corner of his eye, Chen saw that one monkey gave a coin to
another (instead of rushing to exchange it for treats.) He thinks, am
I witnessing the first instance of monkey altruism? No. He was
actually witnessing something he said he really wished he hadn’t
seen,’ said Dubner.

After a brief grooming ritual, the monkeys who exchanged the coin
started to have sex. Immediately after the incident, the paid monkey
went over to Chen to get food in exchange for returning the coin,
Dubner said.

Well, it may not prove that prostitution actually is the oldest profession. But, in this market at least, it emerged pretty damn soon!

(via Slashdot)