When I look at these two reports together, along with the fact that wildlife can become dependent on handouts if fed too often by human hands, I get a different impression as a result.

One is that the typical casual relationship of the writer’s claims is not properly demonstrated in the first place, humans and monkeys have different psychologies, so why read so much from it? The second is that the monkeys meanwhile demonstrate a mentality more akin to the human ‘welfare handout’ one – they expect a free lunch quite literally akin to welfare economics. And when the free lunches differ in size they throw a tantrum.

So if the scientific relationship is valid, over and above how dubious it looks, then I’d say its an indication rather of the dependence free handouts generate.

Figures. Did anyone expect it to be any other way? Women are women…

“Only female monkeys show this pique, the researchers found. Males were much less sensitive to inequality.”

None of the press accounts that I’ve seen mentions that. Too hard to explain how you draw conclusions about the whole species — not to mention an entire evolutionary lineage — from something that only applies to every other individual.