The science of rat empathy and what it tells us about human kindness

[eridani]

http://www.upworthy.com/the-science-of-rat-empathy-and-what-it-tells-us-about-human-kindness

The rats, by a significant margin, still usually saved their friend before getting their delicious bribe.

What does that mean?

Rats might care more about each other than things like food, and that prioritization might be encoded in their DNA.

Why should we care about super-thoughtful rats?

It is often argued that humans are inherently selfish — that without guidance, we would all default to killing and stealing and an "every person for themselves" mentality. That we only help others if it helps us. That evolution can't make us selfless; it's something we have to force ourselves to do.

But if rats show human-like qualities (they laugh like us, they dream like us, they like to have selfless lovers) like altruism, that means it isn't a human-learned behavior.

It could be encoded in our DNA. It means humans could be empathetic and kind by default.
It also means that rats and humans have more in common than we think.

[countryjake]

1. Ha! Cynical Rat Bribe Test

I like that. I've always believed that humans were altruistic by nature; I found proof of it long ago, just by watching my little baby growing up and playing with others. They learn selfish egotistic attitudes from the ones who raise them.

Thanks for sharing this eridani! Interesting.

[Vattel]

2. I do think humans need to learn to have more empathy towards nonhuman animals.

We seem to be inclined to empathize mostly with other humans. Transcending our bias against those nonhuman animals who share enough of our nature to be suitable objects for empathy is not easy.

[WestCoastLib]

3. If your child is cruel to animals, get him/her help immediately

It's one of the signs of a sociopath.

It's obvious to anybody with children that humans are born with tremendous empathy and kindness and also with zero prejudices. People have to be taught to hate.

I'm not surprised it's in rats. Its a mammal/warm blooded animal trait, that allowed us to take over as a dominant force of the planet, from the reptiles when the dinosaurs died out. Instead of leaving our young to fend for themselves, leaving eggs to hatch and babies to figure life out on the own, mammals evolved empathy to care for their young and learned to teach them. We went from living by instinct, to being able to impart learned skills to the next generation, and that eventually evolved all the way to language.

Without empathy, there is no human intelligence.

Mammals are the shit.