EMPATHY .. THE DELHI ACID ATTACK . HUMANS HAVE TO LEARN A LOT FROM APES . REVERSE OF WHAT DARWIN SAID ... THE ABILITY TO FEEL THE EMOTIONS OF OTHERS. THIS IS THOUGHT TO BE THE FOREMOST TRAIT THAT HELPED HUMANS IN EVOLUTION. CHIMPANZEES SHOW GREAT SELFLESSNESS IN BEHAVIOUR WITH THEIR FELLOW CHIMPANZEES . WE MAY HAVE TO APE THEM IF WE HAVE TO SURVIVE . Over the last several decades, we’ve seen increasing evidence of empathy in other species. One piece of evidence came unintentionally out of a study on human development. Carolyn Zahn-Waxler, a research psychologist at the National Institute of Mental Health, visited people’s homes to find out how young children respond to family members’ emotions. She instructed people to pretend to sob, cry, or choke, and found that some household pets seemed as worried as the children were by the feigned distress of the family members. The pets hovered nearby and put their heads in their owners’ laps. But perhaps the most compelling evidence for the strength of animal empathy came from a group of psychiatrists led by Jules Masserman at Northwestern University. The researchers reported in 1964 in the American Journal of Psychiatry that rhesus monkeys refused to pull a chain that delivered food to themselves if doing so gave a shock to a companion. One monkey stopped pulling the chain for 12 days after witnessing another monkey receive a shock. Those primates were literally starving themselves to avoid shocking another animal. Cognitive empathy, where one understands the other’s situation, enables helping behavior that is tailed to the other’s specific needs. In this case, a mother chimpanzee reaches to help her son out of a tree after he screamed and begged for her attention. Cognitive empathy, where one understands the others situation, enables helping behavior that is tailed to the others specific needs. In this case, a mother chimpanzee reaches to help her son out of a tree after he screamed and begged for her attention. Frans de Waal The anthropoid apes, our closest relatives, are even more remarkable. In 1925, Robert Yerkes reported how his bonobo, Prince Chim, was so extraordinarily concerned and protective toward his sickly chimpanzee companion, Panzee, that the scientific establishment might not accept his claims: “If I were to tell of his altruistic and obviously sympathetic behavior towards Panzee, I should be suspected of idealizing an ape.” Nadia Ladygina-Kohts, a primatological pioneer, noticed similar empathic tendencies in her young chimpanzee, Joni, whom she raised at the beginning of the last century, in Moscow. Kohts, who analyzed Joni’s behavior in the minutest detail, discovered that the only way to get him off the roof of her house after an escape—much more effective than any reward or threat of punishment—was by arousing sympathy: If I pretend to be crying, close my eyes and weep, Joni immediately stops his plays or any other activities, quickly runs over to me, all excited and shagged, from the most remote places in the house, such as the roof or the ceiling of his cage, from where I could not drive him down despite my persistent calls and entreaties. He hastily runs around me, as if looking for the offender; looking at my face, he tenderly takes my chin in his palm, lightly touches my face with his finger, as though trying to understand what is happening, and turns around, clenching his toes into firm fists.
Posted on: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 17:09:08 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015