What monkeys teach us about financial risk

Researchers who taught monkeys to exchange tokens for food observed that they shopped at experimenters who gave them food more cheaply, similar to humans. More interesting was how they also demonstrated humanlike approaches to risk. In general they took the safe choice, but sometimes they gambled and lost everything—like people who hang onto sinking stocks—instead of cutting their losses and keeping part of what they had. If loss aversion is hardwired into us, what can we do about it?