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2011 was the year of animal empathy. Two studies released this year, one at the beginning, the other at the end, have taken steps to prove that animals can feel sorry both for humans and for each other.
The first report, covered by Discovery News, explains why some scientists now think dogs feel empathy for humans. Karine Silva and Liliana Sousa of the Abel Salazar Biomedical Sciences Institute studied how dogs react to humans in distress.
Dog owners will agree that their canines certainly respond to their owners when the latter are in distress. But is that true empathy, or just what Silva and Sousa call “emotional contagion,” dogs copying human emotion or just being trained to behave in a certain way when they notice a particular human behavior.
To try to parse out the difference between emotional contagion and true empathy, Silva and Sousa had dog owners fake pain or emotional distress. The dogs being tested tended to respond to these bouts of acting with confusion, not sudden action or attempts to comfort.
Honestly if Silva and Sousa had just talked to me, I could have told them about this outcome of their study. When I’m genuinely in pain, either emotional of physical, my dog rushes to my side and attempts to crawl into my lap and lick my face. If I try to fake it, no dice. The study pointed out that dogs probably respond just as much to cues they can smell and hear, and it’s a lot harder for humans to fake the sounds and smells of genuine stress than it is to act them.
The Discovery News article pointed out other studies done of therapy dogs, dogs used to aid humans with physical and mental problems. When done with their work these dogs usually need to be calmed down with massages and other techniques before they can resume canine behavior. This is one possible sign that dogs can feel and relate to our pain.
It’s neat to have science backing it up, but I’ve always thought that dogs can feel empathy with us. The more exciting study is, in my opinion, one that posits that rats just might be able to feel empathy for each other. The Washington Post investigates.
Researchers at the University of Chicago set to find out if one rat would help a trapped fellow rodent, specifically, one stuck somewhere “unpleasantly restrictive” (i.e., a small tube that couldn’t have been comfortable). The results were, frankly, astounding.
After hearing the trapped rat’s cries of distress, the free rat learned how to open the cage and release its friend. Over time, as it learned how the cage worked, the unhindered rat would do so with greater speed and ease. It did all of this without being prompted by a reward.
In fact, when a pile of chocolate chips was left in the cage, the free rat did something unbelievable. It saved at least one of the treats for its trapped friend, leaving it for the latter until it was freed.
There was nothing in it for the free rat; it wasn’t rewarded for helping its companion. If it was given treats those were distributed at the beginning, before it helped the other rat. There’s just no other way to look at it: the rat acted out of empathy.
Even if it’s more likely that the free rat helped the other to relieve the stress it felt itself when hearing the other’s cries of distress, well, that’s not so different from how we act, is it? Weird to be compared to a rat, but there you have it: another thing all mammals might share in common is empathy.
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*(This image by anselm is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.)
