Monkeys express emotions too!

Some young guy walking around the streets of Shimla in India doesn’t like a particular macaque monkey that he passes. So, being a young male and all, he decides it prudent to give the monkey the middle finger. In retrospect, this was not a great decision.

The monkey was not too keen on the aggressive visual gesture and, not being one to be disrespected in a public context, the monkey proceeds to drop-kick this misguided young man. 

From a psychological standpoint, the question before us now is this: How on Earth did a monkey know that the middle finger was an aggressive gesture?  

The Human Emotion System Runs Evolutionarily Deep

In his book, The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals, Darwin (1872) was the first scholar to really explore the idea of the human emotion system from an evolutionary perspective. In a detailed analysis that includes examples from a battery of animal species, Darwin made the case that the emotion system of humans is evolutionarily ancient, sharing characteristics with the emotion systems of other animals, including other primates, cats, and dogs.

In fact, more recent research on the evolutionary origins of emotion (e.g., Ekman & Friesen, 1968; Geher, 2004) speaks to the fact that the human emotion system functions much like a set of evolved adaptations—and that the human emotion system shares features with many other animal species. Across a variety of primate species, for instance, baring teeth is a signal of anger and hostility. Angular and quick physical gestures also signal hostility and threat across a variety of species (which is why your dog may get scared when you jump off the couch, raising your hands, during the basketball game as you shout at the ref who cannot hear you).

So when he stared that monkey straight in the eyes, a classic signal of threat across species. He bares his teeth. He quickly and aggressively shoots his middle finger up straight in front of the monkey (Bad idea, hapless young male...).

It turns out that macaques and other primates have emotion systems that are much closer to our own than you might think. And how would a young human male respond to being given the middle finger for no good reason in a public space? He’d probably come out swinging. And this furry little monkey in India, armed with a human-like emotion system and with an evolved psychology designed to be aggressive when status and respect are on the table, acted accordingly.

Bottom Line

We’re not the only living things on the planet. And from an evolutionary perspective, we’re not “at the top” by any means. When it comes to emotional expression and experience, in fact, humans are not that different from other primates at all. Something to think about next time you find yourself in a staring match with a monkey on the streets of India! My advice: Keep your middle finger to yourself.