The primatology of Gossip

Do monkeys and apes have their Celebrities?
Press People, Paparazzi, Social Networks, Poster of attractive pinups, Fashion Trends, Celebrities Gossips.. All these Human activities illustrate how much we are interested in knowing about and imitating the socially dominant individuals, let the be artists, politicians or fashion models. A certain numbers of studies carried out in primates - both monkeys and apes — suggest that this attitude toward socially dominant individuals might have some genetic roots.

Viewing celebrities and attractive female bums
Kinship, Reproductive status, social dominance are key regulators of social interactions in primates. Deaner et al. (2005) in this study, have shown that monkeys differentially value the opportunity to see particular classes of social images. Male rhesus macaques were willing to sacrifice juice (reward) for the opportunity to view female perinea (namely female bums) and the faces of high-status monkeys (dominant individuals), while they were willing to view the faces of low-status monkeys only if they received more juice (reward).

Imitating the dominant
Human juvenile individuals and subordinate are prone to imitate dominant ones: our your teenagers mimic Beyoncé, students imitate their mentor, adult seek guidance from more successful peers. Chimpanzees do so as well. Kendal et al, in their study published in 2015, observed that the social transmission (of new behaviours for instance) in chimpanzees is biased toward the dominant. Juvenile and subordinates (low rank) individuals do produce a high rate of innovative behaviours, but most of imitation spontaneously is of a dominant (high rank) individual.