You may have read the famous “monkey and the banana” story on the Internet in various blogs and articles. If not, it’s definitely worth a read. It’s about five monkeys, a ladder and a banana, and the key takeaway is about the human behavior of not challenging assumptions.

Interestingly, while many originally assumed it was based on fact, the story has been creatively tinkered with by successive writers. The background on the fact and fiction behind the story can be explored in an article in Psychology Today, “What Monkeys Can Teach Us About Human Behavior: From Facts to Fiction,” by Dario Maestripieri, a professor of comparative human development, evolutionary biology and neurobiology at the University of Chicago. 

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