Animals have emotions, like Humans
- From: "spiznet" <mark@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 10 Jan 2006 09:12:22 -0800
Animals and Human Experience the Same Emotions
General Science : September 06, 2005
The link between humans and animals may be closer than we may have
realised. Research by Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) has found
that our furry relatives may share many of the same emotions that
humans experience in everyday life.
Dr Filippo Aureli, reader in Animal Behaviour and co-director of the
Research Centre in Evolutionary Anthropology and Palaeoecology at LJMU
will present his findings today (September 6) at the BA Festival of
Science in Dublin.
He explains: "My research has shown that emotion is a valid topic for
scientific investigation in animals and helps us to understand how
animals behave with great flexibility.
"For example self directed behaviours, such as scratch -grooming,
obviously have a hygiene function, but they also reflect motivational
ambivalence or frustration.
"Recent research has shown that there is an increase in such
behaviour in situations of uncertainty, social tension, or impending
danger. The same can be shown in humans who may bite their nails or
pull at their hair in times of anxiety."
Animals respond to the environment much as humans do, reacting
emotionally to others and even becoming stressed and anxious in times
of danger. These emotions have a marked effect on their behaviour but
while researchers may never be able to know how animals actually feel,
studies have found that there are definite behavioural similarities in
emotional expression between animals and humans.
Studying animals is helping researchers, such as Dr Aureli, to
understand more about the phenomena of emotions. Though animals cannot
express their feelings linguistically, researchers have found that like
humans, their emotions can be expressed through actions.
Individual primates behave in different ways depending on the
circumstances they find themselves in and the group members they
interact with. For example, individuals who spend more time in
proximity to one another will generally be friendlier and less
aggressive to each other - showing that the animals form close bonds
with some group members.
Dr Aureli explains: "Monkeys and apes behave as if they take into
account the quality of social relationships, for example whether they
are friends or non-friends. Emotion can mediate the assessment of
one's own relationships and guide animals' decisions on how to
interact with different partners under different circumstances."
Dr Aureli's work has also shown that primates behave as if they
discriminate between the qualities of relationships of other
individuals. For example, following an aggressive interaction between
two animals, a monkey may attack individuals related to the antagonist,
or invite close associates to support it in overcoming the aggressor.
This further relates to human behaviour, where some humans will protect
one another and act on their behalf if a friend is threatened or
bullied.
Dr Aureli says: "Emotional mediation can also be used to gather
information about the relationships between other group members and
guide decisions about how to interact in complex situations involving
multiple partners. The framework of emotional mediation of social
relationships could be particularly useful to explain social
interaction when members of a society are not always together."
He explains that this is what happens in humans living in small
villages. Everyone knows one another by sight or name, but the entire
community is rarely all together and individuals spend most of their
time in smaller sub-groups which meet, merge and divide with different
composition.
Communities with similar characteristics have been found in chimpanzees
and spider monkeys.
Dr Aureli continues: "This situation is particularly challenging for
social decision making because updated knowledge of social
relationships cannot be maintained as individuals spend extended
periods separated from other community members. Emotional experiences
upon reunion can provide quick updates about possible changes in social
relationships."
Dr Aureli adds: "The study of animal emotions provides powerful tools
to better understand the regulation of social relationships in various
social systems and the evolution of the human social cognition.
"Therefore, the way we usually operate in the social world may not be
too different from what other animals do. The more we discover about
how animals, especially monkeys and apes, use emotions to make social
decisions the more we learn about ourselves and how we operate in the
social world."
Dr Aureli presents his research as part of BA Festival f Science
session on 'Primate Social Cognition: What monkeys know and feel about
each other'. The session will focus on the use of innovative
perspectives to investigate cognition, in the absence of language,
which may be applicable to the study of humans.
Source: Liverpool John Moores University
.
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