Emotion in animals:
Introduction:
About the emotion in animals, there is no specific statement but animal lovers, scientists, philosophers, and other people who interact with the animals have suggested their views about emotion in animals. Any specific statement is not given because animals cannot talk about their experience but we can make some suggestions regarding their behavior.
The quick expressions of animals are ambiguous that whether they are emotions or simply innate responses. So, this ambiguity leads to controversy because the situation is not clear. Recent research has become available which provides more information than prior understandings such as about animal languages, cognition, tool use, and even sexuality.
Different views on emotion in animals:
1. Wording of Beth Dixon’s 2001 paper on emotion in animals exemplifies this viewpoint:
Recent work in the area of animals suggested that it is philosophically legitimate to ascribe emotions to non-human animals. It is sometimes argued that emotionality is morally related to humans and non-human animals. I argue in this paper that some types of emotions are more credible than others.
The study of emotion in animals is a respectable field. Most psychologists study emotions in animals. The study of emotions in animals is improving day by day and it is said that emotions basically lie in animals.
2. Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson’s views:
He also expresses the same view. There is a lot of confusion and difficulty regarding emotion in animals: an animal may make certain movements and sounds and show certain chemical signals when its body is damaged. But does this means an animal feels-is aware of pain as we are or it just acted in a programmed way to certain stimuli? Many scientists regard all emotion and cognition (in humans and animals) as having a mechanistic approach.
Examples of emotion in animals:
1. Primates:
Primates and in particular great monkeys have highly developed capabilities for sympathy and theories of mind. Great apes have a highly complex social system. Young apes and their mother have a very strong bond of love.
Often when a baby chimpanzee dies, the mother will carry the body around for some days. The behavior of Chimpanzee is characterized as mournful behavior. The example of the gorilla Koko, who showed sadness on the death of his pet cat.
2. Fish:
By the university of Guelph scientists in Canada in the study of 2007, it is suggested that Fish might have their own separate personalities. The study analyzed a group of trout who were identical. It was shown that different fish in the same group may have different personalities of their own.
Some fish were more forward to taking daring steps than others in other environments. Some fish were more socially active than others. Others preferred to be alone. Fishes also showed different habits such as eating habits.
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3. Felines:
The emotions in cats have also been studied in science. Most people love to have cats as pets. It is suggested that cats can learn to manipulate their owners as they can make vocalizations that are similar to the cries of human babies.
Some learn how to add a purring sound in the cry which made it less similar to humans. Therefore, it becomes harder to ignore. Cats learn to make these cries through operate conditioning; when a particular cry shows a positive response from a human, the cat is more likely to use it in the future.
4. Canines:
It is suggested that canines experience negative emotions in the same way as people, including certain types of chronic and acute psychological behaviors. The amazing experiment for this was Martin Seligman’s foundational experiments and the theory of learned helplessness at the University of Pennsylvania in the year 1965, as an extension of his interest in depression.
A further series of experiments showed that under conditions of psychological stress about 1/3 of dogs do not develop learned helplessness, however, these animals find a different way to handle the situation of stress easily. The corresponding characteristic in humans has been found to relate highly with explanatory style and optimistic attitude and less level of emotion dog that had earlier been repeatedly conditioned to relate a sound with electric shocks did not try to escape the electric shocks after the warning was given.
Facts about emotion in animals:
Do animals have human-like emotions?
The emotion in animals has its separate significance. But the emotion in animals has also been observed which is different from emotion in humans. Their ways to express their emotions are different from humans. If we love animals and pat on them, they will show response. Some animals also start to love their owners. However, some researchers have concluded that emotion is not only linked with humans but other non-human animals also have emotions.
Do animals feel the love?
Yes, animals also feel love or hate as humans feel love or hate. But their way to express themselves is different for example if an animal loves a person or his owner then he will protect him in all ways such as dogs do. So, we should take care of animals as well.
Can animals think and reason?
There is no specific statement about this topic. It might be or not. Sometimes, if animals show such responses which are related to thinking then automatically, they think or reason in this matter. The above essay also explains the feelings in humans.
Relation between emotion and cognition:
The most difficult question about emotion in humans concerns how cognition and emotion are linked with each other. One difficulty that plagues studies of animal emotion and cognition is that minds are private entities. So, no one can have approach on the mind of other people. Because a person cannot reach the mind of another person. Many persons including researchers studying animal emotions have suggested that humans cannot be the only animals that experience emotions.
So, it is very difficult to deny categorically that non-human animals do not enjoy themselves while playing while reuniting and don’t feel sad about the death of a close friend. For example, when wolves reunite, their tails wag to and fro and individuals jump. Also, when elephants reunite, they meet each other in greeting celebration, flapping their ears and moving about and also emitting a special type of vocalization known as “greeting rumble”.
Also, think about the feelings of animals when they move at the death of a close friend. So, most people have a view that animals have emotions that are also expressed by them.
