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Published on: February 25, 2011

Sharing Positive Affective States Amongst Rodents.

Frédéric Michon¹, Julian Packheiser¹, Valeria Gazzola^1,2

¹Social Brain Lab, Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, Royal Netherlands Academy of Art and Sciences, Meibergdreef 47, 1105 BA Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Affective Science

|September 25, 2023

Summary

Positive empathy in rodents, including perceiving, sharing, and preferring positive emotions, may have evolved due to selfish benefits. This research sheds light on rodent emotional worlds and cooperation.

Keywords:

Cooperation Empathy Incentive alignment Prosociality Reward Safety

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Behavioral Biology
Evolutionary Psychology

Background:

Empathy for negative emotions (pain) is well-studied as an aggression inhibitor.
Empathy for positive emotions is less explored but may promote prosocial behaviors through vicarious rewards.

Purpose of the Study:

To review the nascent literature on empathy for positive affect in rodents.
To explore the evolutionary advantages and potential selfish benefits of positive empathy.

Main Methods:

Literature review of studies on rodent emotional perception and sharing.
Analysis of behavioral observations related to positive emotional states in conspecifics.

Main Results:

Rodents demonstrate three components of positive empathy: perceiving, sharing, and preferring actions that promote positive emotional states in others.
These tendencies may offer selfish benefits, such as resource information, social safety adaptation, and optimized foraging.

Conclusions:

Positive empathy in rodents has potential selfish benefits that could drive its evolution.
Understanding rodent positive empathy offers insights into the evolution of cooperation and social behavior.