Over the past few years, I have increasingly taken to referring us humans as “Slightly smarter, pants wearing primates.” (here, here and here) When I discussed it in an Forbes interview (Ritholtz’s Monkey Theory)  it generated a ton of email. I even made reference to it in Bailout Nation.

It was (mostly) a glib comment to show how irrational and biased us monkeys can be. It turns out that joke was closer to the truth than anyone believed.

Laurie Santos gives a talk at TED that looks at how shockingly similar our biases are to those of monkeys when it comes to hardwired foolishness.

The good news, for investors as well as monkeys, is that recognizing our limitations — acknowledging, learning the details of, and contextualizing them — allows us to rise above them . . .

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Previously:
Festival of Links (May 21st, 2006)

How Overrated is Sentiment in Economics? (November 22nd, 2009)

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