Dogs can read human emotions: Canines recognise when people are feeling happy or sad, even if they've never met them
Scientists tested dogs' ability to read the emotions of human strangers
They were able to combine facial expressions with the tone of voice
Dogs were also highly attuned to detecting emotions in other canines
Results prove dogs recognise emotions in all humans not just their owners
Scientists believe they have unravelled just how dogs seem able to show empathy.
It is because they are able to rapidly mimic or 'catch' emotions, research suggests.
In humans, it has been shown that when experiencing empathy, humans tend to mirror or mimic the emotional expression of the person they are engaging with.
Now researchers led by Elisabetta Palagi, of the University of Pisa have found that dogs possess a key 'building-block of empathy' - being able to mimic emotional behaviour in other dogs.
LOS PERROS SON EXPERTOS EN LEER LAS EMOCIONES HUMANAS - LOS CIENTÍFICOS CREEN HABER DESENTRAÑADO CÓMO LOS PERROS PARECEN SER CAPACES DE MOSTRAR EMPATÍA .ELLOS RECONOCEN CUÁNDO UNA PERSONA SE SIENTE TRISTE O FELIZ AUNQUE NUNCA LA HAYAN VISTO ANTES.
The behavioral findings hint that dogs, like humans, might be capable of their own form of empathy
Now Palagi and her colleagues have found that it’s not just humans and our close relatives who experience these empathy-building benefits. For the first time, they have demonstrated that dogs use rapid mimicry with other dogs to reinforce social bonds and get on the same playful wavelength.....
The findings hint that dogs may be able to experience some form of empathy, but more studies will be needed to explore that hypothesis. The researchers also hope to perform a similar study in wolves so they can investigate whether mimicry is a phenomenon found generally in canines, or if it developed particularly in dogs as part of the domestication process.
People can be taught how to empathize with strangers, a new study concluded.
For this study, the researchers at the University of Zurich in Switzerland set out to examine if empathy can be learned and if positive experiences with others can affect that learning process.
The team, which was made up of psychologist and neuroscientist Grit Hein, Philippe Tobler, Jan Engelmann and Marius Vollberg, measured their participants' brain activity when they experienced different situations with other people.
Dogs can copy each other's expressions in a split-second just like people, showing signs of basic empathy, according to Italian researchers.
Mimicking each other's facial expressions is a human habit, which helps people to get along. Dogs do the same to bond with other dogs, scientists report in the journal, Royal Society Open Science. They think dogs may be showing a basic built-in form of empathy, enabling them to pick up on emotions.
Monkeys DO show empathy: Macaques make more eye contact when acting 'kindly' and care about how their peers are feeling
French researchers paired up monkeys to study empathetic behaviour
Experiment involved treats of juice and punishing 'airpuffs'
It showed most macaques chose to reward partners and not punish them
Suggests take the welfare of friends into account when making decisions
Now scientists have shown that the creatures also seemingly show empathy - a characteristic thought to be almost uniquely human.
The new study suggests macaque monkeys take the welfare of their friends into account when making behaviour choices that could reward or punish their peers.
Empathy: A Bridge across Species: A workshop. May 6, 2015. Afternoon Session. First Talk. Ludwig Huber (University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna): Measuring ...
LIKE ME: THE EVOLUTIONARY AND NEURO-COGNITIVE BASIS OF THE LINK BETWEEN IMITATION, EMPATHY AND PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOUR IN DOGS AND HUMANS
For many at-risk youth in New York City, violence and crime is an inescapable fact of life.
But Audrey Hendler is hoping to change that, with the help of about 25 four-legged teaching assistants.
In 2010, Hendler launched A Fair Shake for Youth, a program that brings therapy dogs into middle schools in under-served communities of New York City to teach children empathy and responsibility and help prevent bullying.
Hendler, a certified dog trainer and Canine Good Citizen evaluator, previously worked with Puppies Behind Bars, through which inmates in maximum- and minimum-security prisons helped socialize future working K-9s and service dogs for wounded war veterans.
I hope this article provides insight on how to confront student issues as an educational leader.
This article is beneficial to me because so many students at my current school struggle with empathy. This program could be useful to our school. I definitely want to keep this article in my back pocket.
I love involving students with dogs for so many reasons. This year, we are using the trained dogs to help keep school drug free. It is not a like a huge police raid. The dog servicing our building what brought in for students to meet. We learned about and say him "perform" in an assembly. He was introduced in a non-threatening way as more of a liaison for keeping our school safe. Using animals to educate is a great way to teach students empathy, responsibility and increase confidence. In this article, I interrupted the program to target 12 kids specifically who were in need of skills building relating to bullying and school safety. An administrator would need to be pretty creative with scheduling as missed instructional time in core content areas is difficult. The impact however could be substantial to student's emotional and social growth.
I scooped this article because it involves dogs and children. I firmly believe that animals can be calming and reassuring for students who are at-risk. This article is the start of an awesome program that I hope grows and spreads across the country. I hope that others who read this article will be open-minded enough to realize that dogs, and other animals even, can play an important role in helping students as they grow. I hope that staff members realize that we are educating the whole child at school now, and not just offering an academic education.
Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within the other person's frame of reference, i.e., the capacity to place oneself in another's shoes.
Elephants
Asian elephants have just been added to the list of animals that show tremendous concern for others. A study in the journal PeerJ found that when an Asian elephant detects that another is stressed out, it uses its trunk to gently caress the suffering elephant and emits a sweet-sounding chirp.
Yawning when you see someone else yawn is thought to signal empathy. About half of all people do it contagiously. Now researchers have confirmed what many pet owners have long suspected: Dogs, too, are contagious yawners.
In a series of experiments carried out on two dozen breeds, from poodles to pit bulls, researchers found that when a dog watched either a stranger or its owner yawn, the dog was far more likely to yawn in response to its owner. Dogs in the study also demonstrated that, for the most part, they could not be duped. They responded frequently to genuine yawns, but less so to fake yawns in which people simply stretched and then opened and closed their mouths without making noise.
We project very complex—and very human—moral and emotional lives onto our animal companions. Now, scientists studying animal cognition are finally revealing the machinery of animals' moral compasses.
As the go-to animal for biological and behavioral research, rats have long been the darlings of science. But only in recent years has their capacity for empathy started to get more attention.
That’s not to say that research into rat empathy hasn’t been done in the past. In 1962, scientists George E. Rice and Priscilla Gainer presented individual rats with a squeaking rat suspended in a harness. For the control condition, they presented the rats with a Styrofoam block in another harness. The experimenter rat could respond by pressing a bar that would lower either the distressed rat or the block. The distressed rat was freed more often than the block.
To learn more about some of the empathy research covered in this article, watch the video below.
As such, I was particularly heartened to hear last week that an open letter has been sent to 12 leading institutions, including those cited above, to overcome their blind spot concerning nonhuman animals. The Vegan Society’s Research Advisory Committee members, Dr Richard Twine and Dr Kay Peggs are among more than 30 social scientists from the UK, US and Australia who have signed an open letter urging 12 leading institutions whose work focuses on empathy and compassion to overcome their apparent disregard of nonhuman animals. ...
The idea for the letter was developed by vegan psychotherapist and social worker Beth Levine and underlines ways in which cultural norms position nonhuman animals either as commodities to be exploited for our pleasure, or as having interests 'less than' those of humans.
It also highlights the negative impact these social norms have not only on nonhuman animals, but ourselves and the societies we live in:
While playing, dogs mimic their furry pals more often than they copy strangers — a behavior that could reveal more about how dogs became man's best friend, researchers say.
Mimicking behavior may underlie what scientists call emotional contagion, a basic form of empathy where one shares others' emotions.
In people, chimpanzees, orangutans and other primates, emotional contagion is linked to facial mimicry, a fast automatic response where they involuntarily mimic others' expressions.
Like primates, dogs are social animals — they use their eyes, lips, teeth, heads, tails and bodies in communicative ways. As such, researchers wanted to see if dogs also experienced rapid mimicry.
New research has found that dogs can mimic the expressions of people and other dogs, and show basic signs of empathy.
They are known as 'man’s best friend', and new research from Italy is attempting to prove that statement has more scientific evidence to support it than we might think.
According to a study by the Royal Society Open Science, dogs can instantly mimic each other’s facial expressions, as well as that of their owners and other humans they interact with.
As part of the research, 49 dogs were filmed playing in a dog park - with their playful behaviour noted in various forms: such as when a dog keeps its mouth open and relaxed, or when it crouches on its front legs and wags its tail.
Researchers have determined that dogs involuntarily mimic others' expressions--a basic building block of empathy. Dogs may exhibit signs of empathy, according to a group of Italian researchers. Publishing in the journal Royal Society Open Science, the researchers claim that canines are capable of both rapid mimicry and emotional contagion.
According to the study, "Emotional contagion is a basic form of empathy that makes individuals able to experience others’ emotions. In human and non-human primates, emotional contagion can be linked to facial mimicry, an automatic and fast response...in which individuals involuntary mimic others’ expressions." Lead author, Elisabetta Palagi,
When I started working with dogs many, many years ago, empathy in dog training was not a phrase that was typically used in conjunction with the training of dogs...
Empathy in dog training is the ability to understand the effect our actions have on our dogs and then to change what we do for the better. This is empathy and yes, it most certainly has a place in dog training.
A client of mine has written a piece on empathy in dog training for her blog, it’s worth a read. http://unimenta2.dsm.pw/?p=1867
New research shows that the gulf that separates us humans from our evolutionary cousins is quite narrow. How do we reconcile with the fact that the Chimps are closer to humans than we had ever imagined?...
Mirror neurons are the neurological basis of empathy. They are very much there in our evolutionary cousins – Chimpanzees.
The mirror neurons dissolve boundaries of the small ‘I’ and expand awareness to others. It is this ability and movement to transcend the narrow self that has brought out all the evolution, and it most probably knows no species barriers (which we have erected in our arrogance).
Does this provide evidence that chimpanzees are empathetic?
While chimpanzees are humans closest living relatives, we must not confuse their gentle side for empathy. Caring for their disabled does not provide evidence that they understand another individual’s emotional state—the definition of empathy.
“Although I don’t think this study showed anything about empathy, I do think there is strong evidence for it in chimpanzees,” he said.
When Koko the gorilla heard about the recent death of Robin Williams, she broke down and cried. Are animals capable of being empathetic? Tara explains how a few different types of animals are capable of feeling the same emotions as humans!
These one-to-one empathy sessions support; well-being, healing, practicing to be a better listener and supporting you in creating empathic environments in your relationships, family, school, work, communities and beyond.
Equine therapy has been shown to help nurture self-awareness and empathy
Not so long ago, if you had anxiety or depression, cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) was the answer. It was everywhere. Now mindfulness is even more ubiquitous.
And there is indeed much scientific evidence for its benefits in treating depression, anxiety and addiction. But, as Rachel Boyd of the mental health charity Mind points out, “It’s not for everyone and there are lots of alternatives.” Before CBT, Freudian psychotherapy dominated. We’ve lumbered from digging up the roots of our problems, to solving issues by changing the way we think and behave with CBT, to learning to enjoy life how it is, through mindfulness.
But if none of the above appeal to you, that doesn’t mean it’s time to give up all hope of a calmer, brighter outlook. There are other options.
This is so true - last year I met a man in his late 60s he had lost his wife and was "broken" his family against his wishes bought him a 12 week old puppy - a spaniel type - clearly needed walking every day ............ 1months on I see this guy and his dog out and about every Morning - the dog is so friendly he stops to talk to everyone - the owner is a changed person.
If you aren't an animal lover though and you are feeling the pain of bereavement - hypnotherapy offers a gentle way to help ease some of your pain.
Does owning a pet or even watching those ubiquitous YouTube animal videos make us more empathetic? Apparently so. Loving those creatures may unlock ways to make you less lonely and make the world a better place.
"Interacting with a pet can increase oxytocin, beta-endorphin and dopamine levels as well as reduce cortisol levels — powerful neurochemicals that can lower our blood pressure and make us feel happier, better and more relaxed," says Rebecca A. Johnson, a professor and director of the Research Center for Human-Animal Interaction at the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine.
Oxytocin, often called the "love" or "trust" hormone because of the feelings it triggers when we kiss or fall in love, also promotes social bonding.
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By Fiona Macrae, Science Editor For The Daily Mail, 13.01.2016
LOS PERROS SON EXPERTOS EN LEER LAS EMOCIONES HUMANAS - LOS CIENTÍFICOS CREEN HABER DESENTRAÑADO CÓMO LOS PERROS PARECEN SER CAPACES DE MOSTRAR EMPATÍA .ELLOS RECONOCEN CUÁNDO UNA PERSONA SE SIENTE TRISTE O FELIZ AUNQUE NUNCA LA HAYAN VISTO ANTES.