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Pink chimp experiment


h4tt3n

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Hello, heres a Q about animal behaviour

 

A few years back I read about an experiment regarding the behaviour of chimpanses living in their natural environment. As far as I remember, one of the chimps were taken out of the group, was dyed pink and then put back into the group again as soon as possible. The result was that the poor creature were chased away or perhaps even killed by its own family and friends.

 

If you can, please tell me more about this or other related experiments. If you happen to know any book titles, I'd be glad to hear about them too.

 

Regards,

Michael

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Ahem, Yes... I think it's a bit far out too. This is one of the reasons why I ask about it - I'm not even completely sure that it ever happened. If it did, though, I'm VERY interested in knowing it.

 

If anyone in here heard about even slightly similar experiments or experiments with similar result (aggression), I'd very much like to hear about them, too.

 

Michael

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It seems as though we are more like chimps than we think after all; No more than a hundred and fifty years ago, if someone took a man, dyed him black, and replaced him, he would be met with similar aggression.

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Spot on! ...and thats exactly why I want to know if this experiment was ever really carried out. It would be a great argument against most kind of hostility against different looking outsiders - Its simply a unreflected instinctive reaction. This instinct probably made a lot of sense five million years ago - but it definitely doesn't in a modern democratic society.

 

Michael

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I've been thinking about it, and I don't believe it. Chimps are pretty close-knit. And I think they'd know.

 

There's a chimp at the zoo here that's lost all of his hair and they still treat him like they always have.

 

I'm still looking though.

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