Monkey story...

I was chatting over the phone with RS a few daya ago,
and she told me an interesting experiments with monkeys about culture influence...

This is roughly how it goes...

5 monkeys were locked in a room with a bunch of bananas in the centre of the room.
Whenever the moneys tries to touch the bananas, cold water will be splash at them.
And soon, they no longer tries to eat the bananas because they knew of the consequences.

Then, one fine day, one of the five monkeys was replace by a NEW monkey.
The new monkey, not knowing the about the water splashing punishment,
approaches the bananas.
While all the rest of the 4 monkeys uses all means to stop the new monkey from doing so...
To avoid the water splashing punishment.

Soon enough, the NEW monkey learn that he cannot touch the banana because something bad will happen to him. He learned this through his inmates, by hook or by crook.
Yet, bearing in mind, he was never been splashed by any cold water, since he was introduce.

Then, one fine day again, one of the 4 old monkeys was replaced by another NEW monkey.

The same thing happened again.
The new monkey will go for the bananas, while the rest stopped him.
Eventually, as we have guessed.
No monkey dares to pick the bananas.

And the same thing happened overtime, all the old monkeys were replaced one by one by new monkeys.

At the end of the experiment, the room is left with 5 ALL new monkeys in the room
which all of them had never experience any cold water being splashed at them before...
since they day they were introduced into the room.

YET, NONE OF THEM DARE TO GO NEAR THE BUNCH OF BANANAS.

The moral of the experiment...
never underestimate the power of cultural influences and teaching against instinct.
And it sets me thinking...