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- From monkey to man: "Punch phenomenon" will help fight bullying in schools
From monkey to man: "Punch phenomenon" will help fight bullying in schools
The story of saving a baby macaque named Punch, abandoned by his mother, with the help of a plush toy is an ideal model for the formation of bullying aversion in children, psychologists say. A monkey from a Japanese zoo became famous thanks to social media. And the whole world is watching her dramatic relationship with her relatives. The accumulated video material on this topic can be used for lessons to develop compassion and emotional intelligence, experts say. And according to primate experts, it is necessary to continue monitoring Punch in order to understand how an unusual childhood will affect his adult life.
Learning from the model
A monkey named Punch, popular on social networks, can become a good example for the formation of children's aversion to bullying, Olga Valaeva, head of the Center for the Development of Digital Clinics at Moscow State University, told Izvestia. Videos of a baby macaque, which was abandoned by its mother at the zoo, but survived and adapted to the pack thanks to a plush toy thrown by staff, are gaining a huge audience around the world.
— The story is suitable for working with a children's audience as part of bullying prevention. Due to the empathy that Punch evokes in children due to its appearance and behavior, it is possible to visually show what the victim of bullying is experiencing, and form a bridge from children to Punch, and from him to the person being bullied. This will create an aversion to bullying in a team or group," she said.
The theory of learning through observation was developed by the famous American behavioral psychologist Albert Bandura. He proved that such an approach can be more effective than self-reproduction of behavior. And Punch is very well suited to the role of a model, the specialist explained.
— At the same time, it is important that an adult understands the behavior of the participants in this story in relation to Punch. This will form a high sense of children's identity towards the monkey, then you can watch bullying in the group. And then show adult macaques who treated the cub well, so that the child learns this form of behavior," said the psychologist.
Macaque Punch was born on July 25, 2025 in the zoo of the Japanese city of Ichikawa. The mother of the cub refused to feed and raise him, so the staff took over this role. His packmates didn't accept him either. The animal was fed from a bottle. In nature, baby macaques often hold onto a female, which develops their muscles and gives them a sense of security. Therefore, the experts gave Punch a plush orangutan, which the baby loved to hug and carry everywhere with him. After frequent quarrels with adult macaques, he sought support from a toy. Gradually, the attitude towards the cub in the pack began to improve. There were even reports on social media that Punch had found a girlfriend.
The story of Punch the monkey, if told or shown on the basis of video recordings to children of preschool and primary school age, can help to awaken feelings such as compassion, mercy, pity, good-naturedness. In the hands of a skilled teacher, this story can be a good tool for conducting a class hour on the prevention of school bullying, says Artyom Tarayants, a clinical psychologist and developer of psychological assistance techniques.
— Unfortunately, school bullying is too complex a phenomenon to be eliminated so easily, but such demonstrations will not be superfluous either. Children need to be taught at school what is good and what is bad. Many parents fail to cope with this, demonstrating clearly negative patterns of behavior and attitudes towards each other. The story of Punch the monkey, and the emotional response of millions of people to its fate, can be a good illustrative example on the basis of which it is worth discussing with children the feelings they will experience when viewing the materials," said the expert.
The Macaque Hierarchy
Studying such materials will contribute to the development of emotional intelligence. If you supplement it with a conversation about the importance of mutual support and empathy towards those who particularly need it, you will get a full-fledged lesson aimed at creating a favorable environment for the development of moral guidelines in communication. Artyom Tarayants is sure that children are able to perceive the elementary aspects of the moral side of relationships from the age of seven.
Replacing a mother who refuses a cub with a toy is a fairly common practice for animals in captivity, Inna Golubeva, a junior researcher at the Laboratory of Physiology of Higher Nervous Activity at the Pavlov Institute of Physiology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who studies primates, explained to Izvestia. Moreover, experiments have shown that it is important for cubs that such a model is soft and fluffy, then they perceive it better.
— Stories like Punch's provide valuable data on the formation of primate groups. The toy made him feel safe. At first, he could quite perceive her as alive, but the older he gets, the less he believes in it. For adult macaques, on the contrary, the toy might seem like something strange that set Punch apart from his peers. But gradually we got used to it. In fact, macaques are quite tolerant monkeys. The cub understood how to interact with them, and they understood how to interact with him, and their relationship will develop well in the future," she said.
The Institute of Physiology is currently conducting long-term observations of a group of monkeys. The experiment began in 2022: the animals were brought together in childhood and the patterns of group formation and hierarchy within it are being studied.
It is necessary to continue monitoring Punch: it is important for scientists to understand whether he will be able to create a family, how he will treat his offspring and how the features of his childhood will affect his adult life, Inna Golubeva added. The results obtained can be applied to human psychology with certain assumptions, the scientist said.
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