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MONKEYS, A BANANA AND COLD WATER

2K views 6 replies 6 participants last post by  bagpiper 
#1 ·
Just found on the Virginia Gun Owners Forum

MONKEYS, A BANANA AND COLD WATER
postby Greybeard » Fri Oct 24, 2014 2:26 pm

PAY ATTENTION!

Psychology 101...

If you start with a cage containing five monkeys, and inside the cage hang a banana on a string from the top, and then you place a set of stairs under the banana, before long a monkey will go to the stairs and climb toward the banana.

As soon as he touches the stairs, you spray all the monkeys with cold water. After a while another monkey makes an attempt with same result -- all the monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.

Now, put the cold water away.

Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and attempts to climb the stairs. To his shock, all of the other monkeys beat the crap out of him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs he will be assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original five monkeys, replacing it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment -- with enthusiasm -- because he is now part of the "team."

Then, replace a third original monkey with a new one, followed by the fourth, then the fifth. Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked.

Now, the monkeys that are beating him up have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs. Neither do they know why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.

Finally, having replaced all of the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys will have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, not one of the monkeys will try to climb the stairway for the banana.

Why, you ask? Because in their minds, that is the way it has always been!

This, my friends, is how the House and Senate operates... and this is why, from time to time:

ALL of the monkeys need to be REPLACED AT THE SAME TIME!
 
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#2 ·
This is an old and often twisted tale used a lot in process change and process improvement lectures/presentations, and, unfortunately, quite a bit construed:

"Stephenson (1967) trained adult male and female rhesus monkeys to avoid manipulating an object and then placed individual naïve animals in a cage with a trained individual of the same age and sex and the object in question. In one case, a trained male actually pulled his naïve partner away from the previously punished manipulandum during their period of interaction, whereas the other two trained males exhibited what were described as "threat facial expressions while in a fear posture" when a naïve animal approached the manipulandum. When placed alone in the cage with the novel object, naïve males that had been paired with trained males showed greatly reduced manipulation of the training object in comparison with controls. Unfortunately, training and testing were not carried out using a discrimination procedure so the nature of the transmitted information cannot be determined, but the data are of considerable interest."

Sources: Stephenson, G. R. (1967). Cultural acquisition of a specific learned response among rhesus monkeys. In: Starek, D., Schneider, R., and Kuhn, H. J. (eds.), Progress in Primatology, Stuttgart: Fischer, pp. 279-288.

Mentioned in: Galef, B. G., Jr. (1976). Social Transmission of Acquired Behavior: A Discussion of Tradition and Social Learning in Vertebrates. In: Rosenblatt, J.S., Hinde, R.A., Shaw, E. and Beer, C. (eds.), Advances in the study of behavior, Vol. 6, New York: Academic Press, pp. 87-88:
 
#4 ·
And how does the original poster who ever wrote it propose we replace all the monkeys at the same time. Sure, in theory we can sweep the house clean every two years, but we can only replace a third of the Senate at a time. Which if the monkey scenario is true, means it's a lost cause.
 
#6 ·
I say this in jest, so please, refrain from flaming me...but.

The way to do a clean sweep is being demonstrated almost daily in Iraq against ISIL. A properly placed Hellfire, at the right time, would pretty much do it.

Mel
 
#7 ·
quychang said:
I say this in jest, so please, refrain from flaming me...but.

The way to do a clean sweep is being demonstrated almost daily in Iraq against ISIL. A properly placed Hellfire, at the right time, would pretty much do it.
Has any scene in any movie ever elicited a more universal response of applause and cheer than the scene in the "Independence Day" where the aliens blow up the White House? :D

And yet, we keep re-electing incumbent congressmen at 80% or more. We get the government we deserve.

Or perhaps we are fulfilling the warnings of Jefferson that, "Those who expect to be both ignorant and free, expect what never was and never will be."

One of the great, lasting plagues upon our nation of the racism of the past is the inability to impose any kind of literacy or civics test before allowing someone to vote.

Charles
 
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