A 2011 study found that when a free rat came in contact with a rat trapped in a container, the free rat was empathically motivated to release the distressed rat from its cell. But a new study, published in Frontiers in Psychology, noted that a rat put in a similar scenario but given an anti-anxiety medication, was less likely to free its trapped peer.
Both studies were led in part by Peggy Mason, professor of neurobiology from the University of Chicago. In the most recent study, Mason discovered that rats given the antidepressant midazolam were less likely to free a fellow rat from a locked compartment, but would, however, open the same restrainer device when it contained chocolate instead. The drug dampened a test rat's emotional connection with a distressed peer, but did not limit its physical ability to open the container if it so chose to.
Basically, the free rat acted like an self-centered, cocoa-fueled jerkwad.
When one person yawns, its not uncommon for someone else to follow suit. The same goes for laughing or smiling. This involuntary mimicry of another person is known as “emotional contagion,” and is thought to be evidence for a basic form of empathy, as one person is able to experience what another is feeling.
Now, it seems, dogsmay do this too as they have been found to involuntarily mimic other dogs while playing. The researchers claim that this gives further proof that dogs are very likely empathetic.
We know that dogs can and do mimic their owners, as shown when canines catch their human’s yawn. But the new research, published in Royal Society Open Science, has found that dogs do the same with other dogs in what the scientists think is an attempt at bonding.
Selected students spend the first four weeks of the program in a school classroom for two hours a day after school. There, they engage in positive-reinforcement lessons and exercises that help teach them empathy and compassion for living creatures.
During the final four weeks of the program, students are divided into pairs and teamed with a shelter dog, who they actually get to train.
“Creating that student-dog bond is absolutely vital,” says Kurup. “Many of the dogs have backgrounds that are similar to those of the students — some have been abused, others neglected or abandoned.”
Human beings create arbitrary barriers to exclude beings who aren’t like them. Human beings have justified their wars, slavery, sexual violence, and military conquests with the mistaken belief that those who are “different” do not experience suffering and are not worthy of moral consideration.
As an educator, you have a chance to teach your students that all animals—whether a rat, a pig, a dog, or a child—feel pain, happiness, and fear and want to live.
Teaching empathy and compassion for animals not only helps animals but also lessens the likelihood that kids will grow up to be cruel to other kids.
We know, for example, that many violent offenders, including many serial killers, started out harming animals before moving on to humans.
The school’s Student Protection Committee, comprised of faculty members, students and parents, wanted students to practice empathy by performing acts of kindness toward animals, according to a news release from the school district.
The school partnered with the Aiken SPCA-Albrecht Center for Animal Welfare to promote kindness to animals through spreading awareness about adoption, the importance of spaying and neutering pets and encouraging others to volunteer in places like animal shelters.
Researchers have been working on a brand new study based on prairie voles actually consoling their loved one who are feeling stressed, and based on the results of this study, it appears that the infamous “love hormone,” called oxytocin, is the underlying mechanism.
Up until now, we have only been able to document the consolation behavior in a few non-human species that typically have higher levels of cognition and sociality, such as dogs, dolphins, and elephants.
For this particular study, the prairie vole were used and were able to show researchers that they are particularly social rodents, which causes them to be the focus of multiple studies in this field.
This data led James Burkett, along with his colleagues, to vastly explore their potential for empathy-motivated behaviors
Researchers have been working on a brand new study based on prairie voles actually consoling their loved one who are feeling stressed, and based on the results of this study, it appears that the infamous “love hormone,” called oxytocin, is the underlying mechanism.
Up until now, we have only been able to document the consolation behavior in a few non-human species that typically have higher levels of cognition and sociality, such as dogs, dolphins, and elephants.
For this particular study, the prairie vole were used and were able to show researchers that they are particularly social rodents, which causes them to be the focus of multiple studies in this field.
This data led James Burkett, along with his colleagues, to vastly explore their potential for empathy-motivated behaviors
Ms Klepacki said the program has helped the children as much as the dogs.
“It's encouraging children to develop empathy with animals. It's a peaceful, quiet exercise. They're seeing fearfulness in these animals, and seeing the positive affect they can have,” she said.
“It encourages them to look at things from an animal’s perspective. That helps them better connect with animals and people in their lives.”
Ms Klepacki said the program has so far been very successful in helping to find forever homes for a large number of dogs.
Throughout her career as a neurobiologist, Peggy Mason has been told over and over that the rats she experiments on are not capable of empathy. Only humans and other primates can understand the emotions of another. Most other animals can't. And certainly not beady-eyed rats....
The study, published in Science in 2011, was a breakthrough. If rats were capable of basic forms of empathy, then perhaps empathy was common — or even universal — among mammals. Studying animal empathy could give us insight into how human empathy evolved. ("I consider myself just a fancy rat," Mason told me.)
Young said his research points to a potential role for oxytocin in the treatment of autism spectrum disorder, though more work is needed. “
We now have the opportunity to explore in detail the neural mechanisms underlying empathetic responses in a laboratory rodent with clear implications for humans.”
According to study co-author Frans de Waal, who first discovered animal consolation behavior in chimpanzees in 1979, the findings also shed new light on the range of animals that feel empathy, and how empathy is separate from complex cognition.
Scientists have been reluctant to attribute empathy to animals, often assuming selfish motives,” he said.
The secret to empathetic behavior lies in the hormone oxytocin, which promotes maternal bonding and feelings of love among humans, too.
Dogs, dolphins and elephants are known to show empathy when a loved one is in pain, and now researchers have found the first consoling behavior in a rodent, known as the prairie vole.
Researchers say the findings, published Thursday in the US journal Science, could help scientists better understand human disorders such as autism and schizophrenia, in which a person's ability to sense the emotions of others is disrupted.
The secret to empathetic behavior lies in the hormone oxytocin, which promotes maternal bonding and feelings of love among humans, too.
Scientists at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory University created an experiment in which they isolated prairie voles -- dark rodents which mate in long-term monogamous pairs and raise their offspring together -- from others they knew.
Until now, consolation has only been observed in relatively large brained animals—apes, elephants, dogs, and some large birds.
This study shows for the first time, however, that animals as small as rodents are capable of empathetic behaviors that extend beyond just ensuring their offspring survive, to actually helping others around them that are in need.
“Consolation might be present in many more animal species than was previously thought,” says James Burkett, a neuroscientist at Emory University and lead author of the study...
“This does not mean animals experience empathy in the same way we do, but the basic foundation for empathy and consolation may be present in many more species than once thought.”
Very Emotional, The animal heroes. Animal helps and saves other animals. helps and saves each others, Try to watch this without crying. A Restoring faith i
The growing attachment to household animals may be selective in some cases – doggy birthday parties don’t advance the cause of animal rights appreciably – but anyone who develops a deep relationship with a pet is well-placed to extend that empathy to other creatures, including other humans.
It’s no coincidence that the animal-rights movement that has campaigned for better conditions in factory farms, slaughterhouses, zoos and marine parks has made breakthroughs at the same time the attachment to household animals has strengthened. We abhor the confinement of elephants, or the tedium suffered by a performing orca or the casual cruelties of a mismanaged abattoir, because we have figured out, unlike most of our distant ancestors, that these creatures are indeed suffering, that their suffering is real, and that we have the responsibility to stop it.
We do a lot of studies on empathy in animals, and we found that they are affected by the mood states and emotions of others. This is getting close to human morality, the basis of which is that we empathize and care about others.
Chimps are not into reasoning or justification like we are, but they have the core –what the philosopher David Hume called the moral sentiments. There’s an enormous amount of psychological continuity between humans and our close animal relatives: compassion, empathy, sympathy, reciprocity, cooperation, a sense of fairness and justice.
What’s a good example of moral behavior in animals?
"A lot of times people when they are reluctant to open up with another person, they'll open up when an animal is there,” Taravella said. “It makes them feel more relaxed, more calm and just more willing to share."
It happened today with special need students. K.J., like Hope, has a hearing challenge, but articulates well how animals can teach empathy to humans.
"They won't judge them. They won't lie to them,” said K.J. Huey, an 8th grader. “No matter what trauma they've been through, they'll eventually come around."
Morgan Faulkner, student-"If you give them the love they need, they will give you the love you want."
How a child interacts with the world is learned early on in their development, so how can we teach children to approach those around them from a standpoint of empathy instead of fear or hate?
Introducing the first digital interactive e-book app from the RedRover Readers program: Children will learn important life skills while being immersed in a wonderful story of courage, compassion and empathy. SIGN UP HERE to get the e-book app: http://redrover.org/e-book
Teaching empathy for amimals
Role playing - play being the animal
using dogs as service dogs to foster connection and warmth, via raising oxytocyn,
In the article “Not feeling it? Learn how to navigate the roadblocks to empathy” on our Relate site, we learn that there’s a lot that can disrupt our brain’s ability to empathize. But it’s also true that as long as we believe we can be more empathic, we can be. Studies show that our capacity for empathy is not fixed.
Here are a few things that make empathy in customer service difficult, but that agents can learn to watch—and correct—for.
1. Feeling the pressure..
2. Making snap decisions..
3. “Stranger danger”...
4. Distractions in the workplace..
Following that, here are a few creative ways to help strengthen that empathy muscle.
How a child interacts with the world is learned early on in their development, so how can we teach children to approach those around them from a standpoint of empathy instead of fear or hate?
Introducing the first digital interactive e-book app from the RedRover Readers program: Children will learn important life skills while being immersed in a wonderful story of courage, compassion and empathy. SIGN UP HERE to get the e-book app: http://redrover.org/e-book
Teaching empathy for amimals
Role playing - play being the animal
using dogs as service dogs to foster connection and warmth, via raising oxytocyn,
Throughout her career as a neurobiologist, Peggy Mason has been told over and over that the rats she experiments on are not capable of empathy. Only humans and other primates can understand the emotions of another. Most other animals can't. And certainly not beady-eyed rats....
The study, published in Science in 2011, was a breakthrough. If rats were capable of basic forms of empathy, then perhaps empathy was common — or even universal — among mammals. Studying animal empathy could give us insight into how human empathy evolved. ("I consider myself just a fancy rat," Mason told me.)
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is hoping to turn the infamous torture house used by Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs into an “empathy museum” where visitors can wear the skins of dead and abused animals.
Empathy is the ability to understand and share feelings. Only a handful of species have this trait, including humans. A recent scientific study might have uncovered evidence that tells us why we feel this emotion — and it’s all thanks to a rodent.
Larry Young from Emory University, who studies prairie voles, has seen this behavior again and again. To him, it's a sign that the rodents are showing empathy.
Such claims have proven controversial in the past. For example, in 2012, scientists at the University of Chicago showed that rats will free trapped cage-mates, even if they have to sacrifice a bit of chocolate to do so. The researchers billed these rescues as evidence of empathy—that “rats free their cagemate in order to end distress.”
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