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A monkey economy as irrational as ours

3,498,010 views | Laurie Santos • TEDGlobal 2010

Laurie Santos looks for the roots of human irrationality by watching the way our primate relatives make decisions. A clever series of experiments in "monkeynomics" shows that some of the silly choices we make, monkeys make too.

Laurie Santos looks for the roots of human irrationality by watching the way our primate relatives make decisions. A clever series of experiments in "monkeynomics" shows that some of the silly choices we make, monkeys make too.

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

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Laurie Santos

Cognitive psychologist

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Laurie Santos studies primate psychology and monkeynomics -- testing problems in human psychology on primates, who (not so surprisingly) have many of the same predictable irrationalities we do.

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This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.