Empathy is an emotional state whereby one experiences another’s emotions and feelings. Empathy involves a desire to help and care for others who are in critical emotional situations. Having empathy involves understanding the many factors that inform cognitive thought processes and decision making. Past experiences play a key role in decision making as regards the expressions of empathy for others who may be in a problem out of some illogical decisions made or natural causes. Empathy is strongly connected to feelings of compassion, pity, emotional contagion and sympathy that drive others’ concerns to help and care for the person. However, empathy is more innate in the sense that it takes the capacity to understand other people’s emotional states thus, a complicated imaginative process where imagining oneself as the other person is the order (Yamamoto & Takimoto, 2012).
These imaginative processes become manifest through empathic interaction where one communicates a precise recognition of the implication of the other individual’s personal characteristics, present intentional actions and their emotional connectedness. As such, one is able to acknowledge the other person’s bodily feelings thus, unconsciously responding through expressions such as facial expressions, bodily movements, and vocal expressions as a physical show of the inner affective feelings. Responsively, acts of altruism supersede the empathies felt for the other person in efforts to relieve the emotional and physical sensation of pain.
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The above description of empathy leads to the question of whether non-human primates show empathy. The concept of empathy can be used to describe the sensitivity of animals towards the other animals’ emotional states. Animals may not necessarily undergo the complex imaginative processes of empathy as is the case in humans, but the perception-action aspect shown through unconscious mimicry and bodily connections in non-human primates can be said to be an empathetic response. One of the basic behavioral parameters in use is the contagious yawning that is observed in non-human primates such as chimpanzees, baboons, gorillas, and bonobos. In fact, apes respond to observed yawning much profoundly with a variety of bodily movements, an indication of a higher degree of contagious yawning than in humans.
Amici et al. (2014) cites that chimpanzees show the greatest levels of response facilitation through yawning among the non-human primates when subjected to conspecifics. This aspect is a measure of empathy in non-human primates. Contagious yawning is specifically used as a parameter in the evaluation of empathy in animals because it is connected to the capacity to share emotions of others and be involved in social relations (Amici, Aureli & Call, 2014). Thus, chimpanzees’ perception-action response is a significant behavior that expresses empathy, the theory of mind and self-recognition.
Campbell and Waal (2011) made similar findings that the yawn contagion expressed by chimpanzees is reflective of the brain imaging studies of empathy. When the chimpanzees are exposed to artificial animations of chimpanzees yawning, they process the pictures with empathy such as that shown when humans respond to the pain inflicted on another person or animal (Campbell & De Waal, 2014). However, chimpanzees will show empathy to their in-group members than to outsider ones due to their social structure as opposed to human beings whose empathy can be directed even unto strangers. This fact is also true for gelada baboons. They, equally, show more response facilitation to socially close-bonded members than out-group members.
In understanding human morality, Borg (2014) argues that the moral capacities found in apes such as monkeys form the basis of that continuity in human behavior because apes are close relatives to human beings. Empathy is at the core of human morality that is best manifested through social emotions. A close observation and examination of ape behavior in their unconscious desire to relieve the suffering of another promptly informs the cognitive empathy present in non-human primates. This state is more profoundly witnessed when a male chimpanzee extends its aid to a distressed young one out of a tree. Another case in point is when a male chimpanzee loses in a fight and a young one comes out to hold in consolation the distressed male. Borge (2014) describes such natural, selfless and empathy-based behaviors as proto-moral and links human morality as having evolved from ape behavior.
According to the study by Yamamoto and Takimoto (2012), non-human primates exhibit great empathy, which drives a sense of fairness and pro-social behavior. The study indicates that in evaluating their association with others, non-human primates and other animals have an elaborate cognitive ability that drives them in understanding their partner’s goals first before they can express any acts of empathy. Whereas chimpanzees have good pro-social behaviors such as those of human beings, capuchin monkeys are unskillful in perspective-taking. Apes are insensitive to an imbalance in the effort but do acknowledge reward differences and distribution. Interaction in non-human primates is based on the evaluation of others’ cooperative tendencies thus, informs selection of partners. This argument is an indication that empathy plays a key role in ensuring cooperation and fairness in animal communities.
In conclusion, it is important to note that empathy in non-human primates enhances the pro-social behavior of these animals. Apes have the capacity of appraising others’ situation and through emotional contagion, they make attempts to understand the root of other’s feelings. It is this other-oriented behavior that is manifested when the animals are seen to perform targeted helping and consolation in cognitive appreciation of the other’s distressful situation (Yamamoto & Takimoto, 2012). It is in this manner that empathy leads to enhancement of pro-social behavior among such animals. Therefore, in non-human primates, empathy is more evident where closer ties among individuals exist. This aspect informs the territorial social structure of apes, especially chimpanzees.
References
Amici, F., Aureli, F., & Call, J. (2014). Response facilitation in the four great apes: is there a role for empathy? Primates , 55 (1), 113-118. doi:10.1007/s10329-013-0375-1
Borg, E. G. (2014). From ape empathy to human morality? Analysis , 74 (4), 577-587. doi:10.1093/analys/anu080
Campbell, M. W., & De Waal, F. B. (2011). In-group-out-group bias in contagious yawning by chimpanzees supports link to empathy. PLoS ONE , 6 (4), 1-4. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0018283
Campbell, M. W., & De Waal, F. B. (2014). Chimpanzees empathize with group mates and humans, but not with baboons or unfamiliar chimpanzees. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences , 281 (1782), 20140013-20140013. doi:10.1098/rspb.2014.0013
Yamamoto, S., & Takimoto, A. (2012). Empathy and fairness: Psychological mechanisms for eliciting and maintaining prosociality and cooperation in primates. Social Justice Research , 25 (3), 233-255. doi:10.1007/s11211-012-0160-0
