Monkeys Stay Away From Mean People

This comes from Scientific American. It seems that monkeys can use human body language and behavior to decide whether people are nice or not, then the monkeys avoid contact with people they deem as "not nice."

The article states that capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) tend to avoid individuals who refuse aid to others, according to a study published in Nature Communications.

“Humans can build up an impression about somebody just based on what we see,” says author James Anderson, a comparative psychologist at the University of Stirling, UK. The capuchin results suggest that this skill “probably extends to other species.”

The article goes on to say that similar biases have been shown in chimpanzees and in 3-month-old humans and adds that "the capuchin study suggests that being able to identify undesirable social partners has ancient evolutionary roots."

Now if only adult humans could learn this trick.