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Everybody loves a fat pay rise.

人人都喜欢大幅加薪，

Yet pleasure at your own can vanish if you learn that a colleague has been given a bigger one.

但是当你知道同事的涨薪比自己多时，那么加薪的喜悦感就消失得无影无踪了。

Indeed, if he has a reputation for slacking, you might even be outraged.

如果他还以懒散出名的话，你甚至会变得怒不可遏。

Such behaviour is regarded as “all too human, ” with the underlying assumption that other animals would not be capable of this finely developed sense of grievance.

这种行为被看作是“人之长情”，其潜在的假定其他动物不可能具有如此高度发达的不公平意识。

But a study by Sarah Brosnan and Frans de Waal of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, which has just been published in Nature, suggests that it is all too monkey, as well.

但是由佐治亚州亚特兰大埃里莫大学的 Sarah Brosnan 和 Frans de Waal 进行的一项研究表明，它也是“猴之常情”。这项研究成果刚刚发表在《自然》杂志上。

The researchers studied the behaviour of female brown capuchin monkeys.

研究者们对雌性棕色卷尾猴的行为进行了研究。

They look cute.

它们看起来很可爱，

They are good-natured, co-operative creatures, and they share their food readily.

性格温顺，合作，乐于分享食物。

Above all, like their female human counterparts, they tend to pay much closer attention to the value of “goods and services” than males.

最重要的 是，就象女人们一样，它们往往比雄性更关注“商品和服务”价值。

Such characteristics make them perfect candidates for Dr. Brosnan's and Dr. de Waal's study.

这些特性使它们成为 Brosnan 和 de Waal 博士的理想研究对象。

The researchers spent two years teaching their monkeys to exchange tokens for food.

研究者们花了两年的时间教这些猴子用代币换取食物。

Normally, the monkeys were happy enough to exchange pieces of rock for slices of cucumber.

正常情况下，猴子很愿意用几块石头换几片黄瓜。

However, when two monkeys were placed in separate but adjoining chambers,

但是，当两个猴子被安置在隔开但相邻的两个房间里，

so that each could observe what the other was getting in return for its rock,

能够互相看见对方用石头换回来什么东西时，

their behaviour became markedly different.

猴子的行为就会变的明显不同。

In the world of capuchins, grapes are luxury goods (and much preferable to cucumbers).

在卷尾猴的世界里，葡萄是奢侈品（比黄瓜受欢迎得多）。

So when one monkey was handed a grape in exchange for her token,

所以当一只猴子用一个代币换回一颗葡萄时，

the second was reluctant to hand hers over for a mere piece of cucumber.

第二只猴 子就不愿意用自己的代币换回一片黄瓜。

And if one received a grape without having to provide her token in exchange at all,

如果一只猴子根本无需用代币就能够得到一颗葡萄的话，

the other either tossed her own token at the researcher or out of the chamber, or refused to accept the slice of cucumber.

那么另外一只就会将代币掷向研究人员或者扔出房间外，或者拒绝接受那片黄瓜。

Indeed, the mere presence of a grape in the other chamber (without an actual monkey to eat it) was enough to induce resentment in a female capuchin.

事实上，只要在另一房间里出现了葡萄（不管有没有 猴子吃它），都足以引起雌卷尾猴的怨恨。

The researchers suggest that capuchin monkeys, like humans, are guided by social emotions.

研究人员指出，正如人类一样，卷尾猴也受社会情感的影响。

In the wild, they are a co-operative, group-living species.

在野外，它们是相互合作的群居动物。

Such co-operation is likely to be stable only when each animal feels it is not being cheated.

只有当每只 猴子感到自己没有受到欺骗时，这种合作才可能稳定。

Feelings of righteous indignation, it seems, are not the preserve of people alone.

不公平而引起的愤怒感似乎不是人类的专利。

Refusing a lesser reward completely makes these feelings abundantly clear to other members of the group.

拒绝接受较少的酬劳可以让这些情绪准确无误地传达给其它成员。

However, whether such a sense of fairness evolved independently in capuchins and humans,

但是这种公平感是在卷尾猴和人类身上各自独立演化而成，

or whether it stems from the common ancestor that the species had 35 million years ago, is, as yet, an unanswered question.

还是来自三千五百万前他们共同的祖先，这还是一个悬而未决的问题。