(The following is an excerpt from the book, Hacking Normal by John Stevenot available on Amazon.com)
You’re standing in a room.
The room is illuminated by a white light.
On the wall in front of you is painted an extravagant mural, depicting a river with large rocks abruptly protruding from the rushing water. The water seems to bubble and foam as it pushes itself around the hard, grey impediments.
On the wall to your right, the mural fades into heavy vegetation. There are trees with vines as thick as a farmer’s arm lazily hanging from the branches. Large ferns cover the forest floor. In the middle of the wall, a fallen tree has been painted coming toward the room. Where the tree ends, a large papier mâché trunk extends into the room. The faux tree makes a small shelter in one corner, where bowls of water and food are neatly stored.
On the wall to your left, the mural continues, but constructed here are large faux rocks. Each rock is screwed to the wall in order to give the appearance of a bouldering hill. On the wall behind you there is a door painted with vegetation. Paired with the door is a single, double-sided mirror. Behind the mirror, scientists are inconspicuously scribbling notes and whispering in hushed voices to each other.
In the middle of the room, there is an outline of a small door on the ceiling. The door is held shut by a single, chrome latch that stands out like a firework in the bright blue sky. The floor of the room is littered with branches, plants, and tufts of inedible grass.
The strangest thing about this room, however, is the ladder planted in the center. The only life forms inside the room are five rhesus monkeys. The scientists, on the other side of the double-sided mirror, are closely observing and recording the behavior of the rhesus monkeys, as the monkeys swing between vines and play upon the ladder.
With a loud bang, the door hidden within the ceiling swings open. A white sleeve emerges and places a bunch of bananas on top of the ladder. The hand retracts back into the ceiling and swings the door shut with a click.
The monkeys, frozen from their moment of terror, look around. One monkey cautiously makes his way to the ladder and begins to climb. Each tentative step brings him closer and closer to the bananas. Finally, the brave monkey reaches the top of the ladder and glances back down to the others, who are all staring back in bewilderment. The brave rhesus monkey reaches out and grabs the bananas.
Suddenly, the light in the room begins flashing blood red, sirens blare, the monkeys start screeching, and the ceiling cascades ice-cold water onto the monkeys.
The brave monkey drops the bananas, leaps off the ladder.
He joins the other monkeys, who are now cowering in terror in the corner under the faux tree trunk. After a moment, the sirens go quiet, the light returns to its vibrant white glow, and only a few residual drops of ice-cold water splash onto the ground. The monkeys slowly inch their way out from the corner of the room, listening intently for any other signs of danger. All is calm.
The brave monkey takes a moment to gaze up at the top of the ladder.
He can still see the bright yellow fruit shimmering with water under the lights. Before another monkey can beat him to it, he jumps onto the ladder and quickly climbs to the top. He reaches his hand out and grabs the bananas. Again, the lights turn a blood red, the ceiling rains down ice-cold water, and the sirens ring.
Once more, the monkeys rush to cower in the corner.
As the room settles, the monkeys look from each other to the bananas. Their heads tilt side to side as they try to understand. They slowly spread back into the room, but this time, none of them race to get the bananas. Several hours pass and the brave monkey is again climbing the ladder in the hope of finally seizing the bananas.
The other monkeys notice his attempt to ascend the ladder and begin shrieking.
The brave monkey ignores their cries and continues to climb.
Suddenly, one of the monkeys comes swinging in on a vine and knocks the brave monkey off the ladder and to the ground. The brave monkey, startled and angry, hisses at the swinging monkey and bounds past him back to the ladder. This time, another monkey tackles him and starts to clobber him with his tiny paws.
The other monkeys, who were watching, join in.
They bite, hit, and drag the brave monkey around the room, leaving specks of blood on the floor and murals. Eventually, the fighting stops. The brave monkey sits up, bloodied and beaten. He licks his wounds and limps to the corner opposite of the faux trunk to heal.
The door to the room opens.
A man in a white coat picks up the brave but injured monkey and carries him out.
A few moments later, the door opens again and a woman carries in a new rhesus monkey and sets her on the ground. This new monkey immediately begins to play. She splashes in the puddles of water and swings from the vines, bounding from one side of the room to the other.
The other monkeys only watch.
The new monkey notices the ladder in the center of the room and changes course to swing onto it. With one swoop, she lets go of the rope and lands on the bottom step of the ladder. She looks up, sees the bananas, and begins to climb.
The four original monkeys begin shrieking and running toward the ladder.
They quickly climb up and rip the new monkey off the ladder and pummel her into the ground. Just like the brave monkey, this new monkey crawls into the corner and tends to her wounds.
The door to the room opens. A man in a white coat enters. This time, however, instead of picking up the injured monkey, he leaves with one of the four remaining original monkeys. And, like before, a woman in a white coat comes in with a new rhesus monkey.
This new monkey bounds about the room, playing in the water and swinging on the ropes. He, too, begins to climb the ladder toward the easy snack.
The other monkeys attack.
One monkey even bites off one of the new monkey’s fingers. As this violent encounter plays out, the other, injured monkey watches in horror but understands why.
The new monkey tried to get the bananas.
This time, no one enters the room. There is only a loud bang as the door in the ceiling opens. A white sleeve emerges and removes the bananas from the ladder.
Days go by and the two injured monkeys heal.
A few more days pass and the door to the room opens.
A man in a white coat takes one of the three remaining original monkeys out of the room, leaving only two, while a woman in a white coat leaves behind a brand-new monkey, bringing the total of new monkeys to three.
Per usual, the new monkey swings around the room, playing on the vines and the ladder. The other monkeys, both new and original, eye this one carefully. A few hours pass and there is a loud bang. A white sleeve emerges from the ceiling door and places a bunch of bananas onto the ladder.
The newest monkey looks up at the bananas and then back at the others.
When no one moves, he bounds to the ladder. But, before he can get a paw onto the first step, the first replacement monkey tackles him to the floor. She gouges out one of his eyes and begins to jump up and down on his stomach. The other monkeys watch in approval.
After the fight, the injured and partially blinded monkey crawls to the corner to lick his wounds. A man in a white coat enters the room and removes one of the two remaining original monkeys. As he leaves, a woman in a white coat leaves behind another new monkey.
Again, this new monkey tries to climb the ladder to grab the bananas and the other monkeys take her to the ground with biting and scratching. After the struggle, the wounded monkey crawls to the corner to recover.
After a few moments, the man in the white coat comes in and removes the final original rhesus monkey, while the woman leaves behind another new monkey.
Like all the others, this new monkey dares to ascend the ladder. And, like all the others, she is ripped from the steps, beaten and bloodied, and then left to heal on her own in the corner. There’s a loud bang and a white sleeved arm emerges from the ceiling to remove the bananas.
With a click, the yellow fruit is gone.
Conclusion: “Group Think”
This story has been shared throughout the academic world for decades. It is known as the 5 Monkeys and a Ladder experiment.
If you are concerned about the ethical nature of the story, have no fear. This story is exactly that, only a story. It is actually an amalgamation of ideas, inspired by the experiments of G. R. Stephenson, found in “Cultural Acquisition of a Specific Learned Response among Rhesus Monkeys” as well as certain experiments with chimpanzees conducted by Wolfgang Kohler in the 1920s.
Over the years, it was pieced together to become the urban legend it is today.
What is most compelling about the story is the learned behavior of each new monkey. Despite never having received the punishment of blaring sirens, blood red light, and cold water, the new monkeys still beat up each successive monkey who attempted to climb the ladder to grab the bananas.
If it was possible to ask the monkeys (the new monkeys) why they acted in such a way, their answer would most likely be, “I don’t know. It’s just how things are done around here.”
This attitude of “it’s just how things are done around here” is rampant in many areas of our lives. Most egregiously, it is the dominating mentality that most businesses and employees take when it concerns work.
In the following pages, I am going to argue that, like the monkeys, we are battered individuals who have been molded to operate within a work environment that most, if not all, of us do not truly understand. It’s a system that fears change to the status quo, also known as what I call the normal. What’s worse is that we do not even try to question the system that we operate within because we fear punishment from our peers or superiors.
Yet, it is common that our peers also cannot elaborate on why the punishment needs to be administered. Our reality of work has been established by one, strict definition. And, unfortunately, we have been fed that definition from the moment we were introduced to the idea of work. Because of this, we make massive assumptions about what is normal for work, and we staunchly defend those norms.
Why, though?
Simple.
We don’t know any different.