How Basic Are Behavioral Biases? Evidence from Capuchin Monkey Trading Behavior
通过给卷尾猴引入货币和交易，发现它们面对赌博时表现出参照依赖和损失厌恶等典型行为偏差，说明这些偏差可能先于人类文化习得，具有先天基础。
Behavioral economics has demonstrated systematic decision-making biases in both lab and field data. Do these biases extend across contexts, cultures, or even species? We investigate this question by introducing fiat currency and trade to a colony of capuchin monkeys and recovering their preferences over a range of goods and gambles. We show that capuchins react rationally to both price and wealth shocks but display several hallmark biases when faced with gambles, including reference dependence and loss aversion. Given our capuchins' inexperience with money and trade, these results suggest that loss aversion extends beyond humans and may be innate rather than learned.