Empathy: it’s not just for humans anymore!
Hey guys, Tara here for Dnews - and if you’ve been on the internet the past few days, then
you might’ve seen this story about Koko the gorilla mourning the death of Robin Williams.
Koko is part of California’s Gorilla Foundation, and she’s well-known for her fluency in
English.
She’s capable of signing and communicating over 1,000 words in English.
Back in 2004, Williams visited Koko to film a PSA for the foundation - and the two developed
a special bond.
So earlier this week, when Koko heard of his passing, photos surfaced on the internet showing
her emotional reaction to hearing the news.
According to her caretakers, she became incredibly somber - quivering her lip, and signing the
words “woman” and “cry.”
Now aside from being horribly sad, part of the reason this story is gaining so much attention
- is that a lot of us out there assume that humans are the only animals capable of empathy.
Primate researchers will tell you differently, but it’s still a widely-debated topic.
And a new study, published this week in PeerJ, aims to examine the relationship between human
empathy and empathy of apes.
Specifically, they looked at bonobos - which are our closest evolutionary cousins - and
they examined them under the context of emotional contagion.
It’s the ability to transfer your emotions to another person using facial expressions,
and it’s widely considered to be the most basic form of empathy.
One of the most trivial forms of that, can be seen in the phenomenon of yawn contagion
- or contagious yawning.
Interestingly, humans and bonobos are the only two species where yawn contagion seems
to follow an empathic trend - meaning it’s more likely to occur between individuals who
share a strong emotional bond.
Which is another reason they chose bonobos for this study.
Over the course of five years, a team of researchers observed both humans and bonobos doing everyday
activities, and they took note of how many times each individual responded to another’s
yawns, and how quickly it took them to respond.
It turns out, that in cases where the yawner and the responder were NOT friends, bonobos
responded just as quickly to another’s yawns, as humans did.
Meaning emotional contagion may be just as prominent in bonobos, as it is in humans.
HOWEVER.
In cases where the yawner and the responder were close, or had a strong bond - humans
still reacted more quickly to someone else’s yawn, than bonobos.
Researchers believe this might be due to the complex emotional foundations that human relationships
are built on - but it still highlights an important conclusion of this study.
Which is that when it comes to empathy, a close relationship between individuals is
more important, than their species.
The Robin Williams story is a good example of that - but there’s an even better one,
involving the same gorilla, Koko - adopting a kitten, caring for it for many months, and
then expressing deep sadness when she learned the kitten died.
That story has since been adapted into a children’s book - and it’s a poignant example of the
deep emotional bonds that can exist between two individuals, even those of wildly different
species.
I’m sure some of you out there have pets, or similar stories of bonds you’ve developed
with other animals.
If so, feel free to share them in the comments below - and as always, thank you guys for
watching!