How do animal behavior researchers feel about the feelings of animals? A new survey helps to answer that question.
published a survey of 100 researchers of animal behavior, providing a unique view of current scientific thought on animal emotions and consciousness.
"It's surprising that 89% of the respondents thought that anthropodenial was problematic in animal behavioral research, compared to only 49% who thought anthromorphism poses a risk," Benítez says."That seems like a big shift." In the mid-1800s, famed naturalist Charles Darwin wrote that"the lower animals, like man, manifestly feel pleasure and pain, happiness and misery." By the mid-20-century, however, leading behavioral theorists denigrated the idea of studying animal emotions since, even if they existed, they were scientifically unmeasurable and unverifiable.
She did a postdoctoral fellowship in the lab of Sarah Brosnan, an Emory PhD graduate and a student of de Waal when he served as director of the Living Links Center for the Advanced Study of Ape and Human Evolution at the Emory National Primate Research Center. Brosnan is now a professor of psychology at Georgia State University where she investigates the evolution of cooperation, decision-making and economic behavior among primates.
The most common taxa of animals studied among respondents were birds , non-human primates and other mammals, though each of the taxa that the survey asked respondents to assess were studied by at least some members of the sample. Even in human studies, Benítez adds, it is challenging to determine which biological markers to measure and how to adequately describe and quantify something as complex and variable as emotions. They may include everything from instinctual reactions of disgust or fear to deep feelings of affection and empathy for others.
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