Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-29T04:19:51.109Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Could empathy for animals have been an adaptation in the evolution of Homo sapiens?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

JWS Bradshaw  and
ES Paul
JWS Bradshaw*
Affiliation:
Anthrozoology Institute, Department of Clinical Veterinary Sciences, University of Bristol, Langford House, Langford, Bristol BS40 5DU, UK
ES Paul
Affiliation:
Anthrozoology Institute, Department of Clinical Veterinary Sciences, University of Bristol, Langford House, Langford, Bristol BS40 5DU, UK
*
* Contact for correspondence and requests for reprints: J.W.S.Bradshaw@bristol.ac.uk
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

In humans, empathy has emotional and cognitive components, both of which are linked to caring and nurturant behaviour. Variations in each of these facets of empathy were likely to have been accessible to natural selection during the evolution of Homo, although the likely details of their respective adaptive values has so far only been considered in the context of intraspecific (human-human) behaviour. We propose that evolutionary psychology may provide a useful additional framework for examining why humans feel empathy for certain animals but not others. Phobias towards noxious animals, such as snakes and spiders, have been explained in terms of gene-culture co-evolution, but the possibility of an analogous ‘biophilia’ directed towards other animals has received less attention. The redirection of primarily intraspecific nurturant behaviour towards the young of non-human species may be a general human trait since it is practiced in a wide variety of cultures, including hunter-gatherers, and may arise from the merging of natural history and social intelligences that the archaeologist Steven Mithen suggests evolved ~100,000 years before present (YBP). The visual stimuli that evoke such nurturant behaviour, Lorenz's ‘Kindschenschema’, or ‘cuteness’, have been compared with the super-stimuli whereby parasitic cuckoos induce care-giving from their hosts, but recent evidence suggests that human females of childbearing age are especially sensitised to respond most strongly to characteristics of human infants, and may correspondingly become less attracted towards ‘cute’ animals. It is also possible that during human prehistory, the ability to care for young animals was selected for, in adolescent females, as an honest indicator of future quality as a mother. An ability to empathise with animals may also have given certain individuals and/or groups of kin an evolutionary advantage in hunting, and subsequently herding and domesticating, animals. Concern for animal welfare may therefore stem from an evolved human trait, even though its degree and extent of expression are undoubtedly strongly influenced by culture.

Keywords

animal welfaredomesticationempathyHomo sapiensnurturancepet-keeping
Type
Research Article
Information
Animal Welfare , Volume 19 , Issue S1: Proceedings of the UFAW International Symposium ‘Darwinian selection, selective breeding and the welfare of animals’ Bristol, 2009 , May 2010 , pp. 107 - 112
Copyright
© 2010 Universities Federation for Animal Welfare

References

Appleby, MC 1999 What Should We Do About Animal Welfare? Blackwell Science: Oxford, UKGoogle Scholar
Archer, J 1997 Why do people love their pets? Evolution and Human Behavior 18: 237–259CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baron-Cohen, S 2003 The Essential Difference: Men, Women and the Extreme Male Brain. Allen Lane: London, UKGoogle Scholar
Baron-Cohen, S, Leslie, AM and Frith, U 1985 Does the autistic child have a “theory of mind?” Cognition 21: 37–46CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baron-Cohen, S, Wheelwright, S, Hill, J, Raste, Y and Plumb, I 2001 The “Reading the Mind in the Eyes” Test revised version: A study with normal adults, and adults with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 42: 241–251CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Batson, CD 1991 The Altruism Question: Toward a Social-Psychological Answer. Lawrence Erlbaum: Hillsdale, NJ, USAGoogle Scholar
Blair, RJR, Jones, L, Clark, F and Smith, M 1997 The psychopathic individual: a lack of responsiveness to distress cues? Psychophysiology 34: 192–198CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Blair, RJR 1999 Psychophysiological responsiveness to the distress of others in children with autism. Personality and Individual Differences 26: 477–485CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, SE 2004 The human-animal bond and self-psychology: towards a new understanding. Society & Animals 12: 67–86Google Scholar
Clutton-Brock, J 1987 A Natural History of Domesticated Mammals. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UKGoogle Scholar
Collis, D, Bradshaw, JWS and Cook, SE 1998 Effects of reproductive status on women's ‘attachment’ to their cats. Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Human-Animal Interactions. 10-12 September 1998, Prague, Czech RepublicGoogle Scholar
Cormier, LA 2003 Kinship with Monkeys: The Guaja Foragers of Eastern Amazonia. Columbia University Press: New York, USACrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cross, I 2007 Music and cognitive evolution. In: Dunbar, RIM and Barrett, L (eds) Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology pp 649–667. Oxford University Press: Oxford, UKGoogle Scholar
Davis, MH, Luce, C and Kraus, SJ 1994 The heritability of characteristics associated with dispositional empathy. Journal of Personality 62: 369–391CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
de Waal, FBM 2008 Putting the altruism back into altruism: The evolution of empathy. Annual Review of Psychology 59: 279–300CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Diamond, J 1997 Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. Jonathan Cape: London, UKGoogle Scholar
Eisenberg, N 2000 Empathy and Sympathy. In: Lewis, M and Havilland-Jones, JM (eds) Handbook of Emotion, 2nd Edition pp 677–691. Guilford: New York, USAGoogle Scholar
Eisenberg, N and Miller, PA 1987 Empathy and prosocial behavior. Psychological Bulletin 101: 91–119Google Scholar
Farah, MH, Betancourt, L, Shera, DM, Savage, JH, Gianetta, JM, Brodsky, NL, Malmud, EK and Hurt, H 2008 Environmental stimulation, parental nurturance and cognitive development in humans. Developmental Science 11: 793–801CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fausto, C and Rodgers, D 1999 Of enemies and pets: warfare and shamanism in Amazonia. American Ethnologist 26: 933–956CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fraser, D 2005 Animal Welfare and the Intensification of Animal Production: An Alternative Interpretation. FAO Readings in Ethics, Volume 2. FAO: Rome, ItalyGoogle Scholar
Frith, U and Frith, CD 2003 Development and neurophysiology of mentalizing. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B: Biological Sciences 358: 459–473CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gerdes, ABM, Uhl, G and Alpers, GW 2009 Spiders are special: fear and disgust evoked by pictures of arthropods. Evolution and Human Behavior 30: 66–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glocker, ML, Langleben, DD, Ruparel, K, Loughead, JW, Gur, RC and Sachser, N 2009 Baby schema in infant faces induces cuteness perception and motivation for caretaking in adults. Ethology 115: 257–263CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gould, SJ 1980 The Panda's Thumb. WW Norton: New York, USAGoogle Scholar
Gregory, AM, Light-Hausmann, H, Rijsdijk, F and Eley, TC 2009 Behavioral genetic analyses of prosocial behaviour in adolescents. Developmental Science 12: 165–174CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hayden, B 1990 Nimrods, piscators, pluckers, and planters: the emergence of food production. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 9: 31–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hinde, RA and Barden, LA 1985 The evolution of the teddy bear. Animal Behaviour 33: 1371–1373CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katcher, A and Wilkins, G 1995 Dialogue with animals: its nature and culture. In: Kellert, SR and Wilson, EO (eds) The Biophilia Hypothesis pp 173–197. Island Press: Washington DC, USAGoogle Scholar
Kendler, KS, Neale, MC, Kessler, RC, Heath, AC and Eaves, LJ 1992 The genetic epidemiology of phobias in women: the interrelationship of agoraphobia, social phobia, situational phobia, and simple phobia. Archives of General Psychiatry 49: 273–281CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kidd, A and Kidd, R 1987 Seeking a theory of the human/companion animal bond. Anthrozoös 1: 140–145CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Langlois, JH, Ritter, JM, Casey, RJ and Sawin, DB 1995 Infant attractiveness predicts maternal behaviors and attitudes. Developmental Psychology 31: 464–472CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lorenz, K 1943 Der angeborenen formen möglicher erfahrung. Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie 5: 235–409. [Title translation: The innate forms of potential experience]CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacPhee, AR and Andrews, JJW 2006 Risk factors for depression in early adolescence. Adolescence 41: 435–466Google ScholarPubMed
Miller, P and Eisenberg, N 1988 The relation of empathy to aggressive and externalizing/antisocial behaviour. Psychological Bulletin 103: 324–344CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mithen, S 1996 The Prehistory of the Mind. Thames and Hudson: London, UKGoogle Scholar
Mithen, S 1999 The hunter-gatherer prehistory of human-animal interactions. Anthrozoös 12: 195–204Google Scholar
Morris, PH, Reddy, V and Bunting, RC 1995 The survival of the cutest: who's responsible for the evolution of the teddy bear? Animal Behaviour 50: 1697–1700CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Öhman, A and Mineka, S 2001 Fears, phobias and preparedness: toward an evolved module of fear and fear learning. Psychological Review 108: 483–522Google ScholarPubMed
Phillips, CJC 2009 The Welfare of Animals: The Silent Majority, Chapter 3. Springer: Dordrecht, The NetherlandsGoogle Scholar
Preston, SD and de Waal, FBM 2002 Empathy, its ultimate and proximate bases. Behavioral Brain Sciences 25: 1–72CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pretty, J 2004 How nature contributes to mental and physical health. Spirituality and Health International 5: 68–78Google Scholar
Rankin, KP, Kramer, JH and Miller, BL 2005 Patterns of cognitive and emotional empathy in frontotemporal lobar degeneration. Cognitive Behavioral Neurology 18: 28–36CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rival, L 1993 The growth of family trees: understanding Huaorani perceptions of the forest. Man 28: 635–652CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sanefuji, W, Ohgami, H and Hashiya, K 2007 Development of preference for baby faces across species in humans (Homo sapiens). Journal of Ethology 25: 249–254CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seitz, RJ, Nickel, J and Azari, NP 2006 Functional modularity of the prefrontal cortex: Involvement in human empathy. Neuropsychology 20: 743–751CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Seitz, S 2007 Game, pets and animal husbandry among Penan and Penan groups. In: Sercombe, PG and Sellato, B (eds) Beyond the Green Myth: Hunter-Gatherers of Borneo in the Twenty-first Century pp 177–191. NIAS Press: Copenhagen, DenmarkGoogle Scholar
Serpell, JA 1996 In The Company Of Animals, Chapter 4. Canto: Cambridge, USAGoogle Scholar
Serpell, JA 2005 People in disguise: anthropomorphism and the human-pet relationship. In: Daston, L and Mitmann, G (eds) Thinking with Animals: New Perspectives on Anthropomorphism pp 121–136. Columbia University Press: New York, USAGoogle Scholar
Seyfarth, RM and Cheney, DL 2003 Meaning and emotion in animal vocalizations. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1000: 32–55CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sherman, GD, Haidt, J and Coan, JA 2009 Viewing cute images increases behavioral carefulness. Emotion 9: 282–286CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Singer, T, Seymore, B, O’Doherty, JP, Stephan, KE, Dolan, RJ and Frith, CD 2006 Empathic neural responses are modulated by the perceived fairness of others. Nature 439: 466–469CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, BD 1995 The Emergence of Agriculture. Scientific American Press: New York, USAGoogle Scholar
Sprengelmeyer, R, Perrett, DI, Fagan, EC, Cornwell, RE, Lobmaier, JS, Sprengelmeyer, A, Aasheim, HBM, Black, IM, Cameron, LM, Crow, S, Milne, N, Rhodes, EC and Young, AW 2009 The cutest little baby face: a hormonal link to sensitivity to cuteness in infant faces. Psychological Science 20: 149–154CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Taylor, SE, Klein, LC, Lewis, BP, Gruenwald, TL, Gurung, RAR and Updegraff, JA 2000 Biobehavioral responses to stress in females: tend and befriend, not fight-or-flight. Psychological Review 107: 411–429CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ulrich, RS 1995 Biophilia, biophobia and natural landscapes. In: Kellert, SR and Wilson, EO (eds) The Biophilia Hypothesis pp 73–137. Island Press: Washington DC, USAGoogle Scholar
Weisdorf, JL 2005 From foraging to farming: explaining the Neolithic revolution. Journal of Economic Surveys 19: 561–586CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, EO 1995 Biophilia and the conservation ethic. In: Kellert, SR and Wilson, EO (eds) The Biophilia Hypothesis pp 31–41. Island Press: Washington DC, USAGoogle Scholar