The Human Zoo

by Psychologist Donna Dawson

Donna Dawson, is a psychologist who specialises in ‘Personality and Behaviour’, which makes her very interested in the way people think and behave, their actions and attitudes, and what that tells us about them. The term “Human Zoo”¹ was first coined by the zoologist Desmond Morris in 1969, to compare human city dwellers to captive zoo animals, and Donna finds his comparisons still relevant today. Morris also coined the phrase “The Naked Ape”² to describe the human species, their habits and activities, in terms of the accumulated genetic legacy of their whole evolutionary past. Morris describes human beings as being very like their monkey ancestors, with their innate need to explore, investigate, organise and create.

Dawson has continued this line of thinking to discover other animals besides monkeys with traits that humans emulate – especially office workers in organisations where each department is motivated by a different function. Initially, workers will be attracted to a certain job because of their innate talents and skills (i.e., sales staff need to be aggressive and to think on their feet), but also the job will draw out and exaggerate in each worker the skills and talents required.

When it comes to colour-copier needs, a company will have many different animal traits on display, according to the department involved. For example, a company’s sales team need to have access to high-quality colour fast, in the same way that a cheetah needs to reach its prey quickly and produce a killer-blow. However, this pressing need may make “cheetahs” unaware or uncaring about the cost implications of printing high-volume colour.

Similarly, senior staff demand high-quality colour on tap, but they may complain noisily like “parrots”, because they have not made the connection between their particular demands and cost-effectiveness. While down on the office floor, general employees are getting on with the basics of working and competing (much like “stags”), and most likely lack the specific training to think about cost-saving on their colour-copier needs.

Because the finance team are involved with facts and figures, they will be more aware of the cost implications of colour, and like “pandas” they will be conservative and careful in their actions, using colour more judiciously. And finally, the IT team, with their lower need for colour, will be able to emulate “polar bears”, the most resourceful mammal of all, by gauging when colour is absolutely necessary.

Every company needs the checks-and-balances provided by “cheetahs” versus “pandas”. However, as more global markets open up and the world becomes an even more competitive place, workers in all company departments will need to display more of the characteristics of the adaptable, resourceful “chimpanzee” (who at the moment is most closely associated with marketing and PR staff). Chimpanzees have large brains and, with the right training, they are able to balance two seemingly conflicting ideas at once: for instance, the creative use of colour, against the most cost-effective way to produce it. They can be flexible in the way that they approach projects, and they can find the most imaginative and enterprising solutions to their problems. Chimps have always had to make optimum use of their environment in order to survive.

And so Desmond Morris got it right: the future success of individuals and companies lies in remembering more of the positive traits of our monkey ancestors, as we struggle for personal and commercial success in the “Human Zoo.”

¹ “The Human Zoo”, by Desmond Morris; published first in 1969, by Jonathan Cape, London.

Click below to view the full article