The Tale of Five Monkeys

The following story, though often presented as an experiment, is apocryphal and serves as a metaphor rather than a real scientific account. It’s used in business and social sciences to illustrate the power of cultural inertia and the difficulty of introducing change into systems resistant to it.

Imagine five monkeys placed in a cage. In the middle of the cage there is a ladder, at the top of which, a bunch of bananas is suspended. Whenever a monkey tries to climb the ladder, all the monkeys are sprayed with cold water.

Soon, every time a monkey attempts to climb the ladder, the others, seeking to avoid the unpleasant spray, pull it down and beat it up. Over time, no monkey dares to climb the ladder regardless of the temptation.

Next, one of the monkeys is removed from the cage and replaced with a new one. The new monkey, seeing the bananas, naively tries to climb the ladder but is violently pulled down and beaten by the other monkeys. The new monkey learns not to climb the ladder even though it does not understand why.

One by one, all the original monkeys are replaced. Each new monkey repeats the process, learning not to climb the ladder after being beaten by the others. Eventually, the cage contains five monkeys that have never been sprayed with cold water, yet none of them tries to climb the ladder.

The moral of the story is that group behaviors can persist beyond their original purpose and context, even when the original reasons for those behaviors no longer exist. This tale highlights how societal norms, corporate culture, or operational processes can become entrenched, preventing new ideas from being accepted even when there are no longer valid reasons to maintain the old ways.