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Throughout her career as a neurobiologist1， Peggy Mason has been told over and over that the rats she experiments on are not capable of empathy. Only humans and other primates2 can understand the emotions of another. Most other animals can’t， and certainly not beady-eyed3 rats.
But what she was witnessing in the lab was telling her something very different. In experiments， Mason and her colleagues at the University of Chicago were finding that when one rat was placed near another jailed rat， the free rat would open the hatch4 for a rescue—something it wouldn’t do for a toy rat. What’s more， when given the choice between saving a fellow rat and some delicious chocolate， the free rat would open both cells and then share.
The study， published in Science in 2011， was a breakthrough. If rats were capable of basic forms of empathy， then perhaps empathy was common—or even universal—among mammals5. Studying animal empathy could give us insight into how human empathy evolved6.
But almost immediately， Mason’s results met intense skepticism7.
Alex Kacelnik， a behavioral ecologist， argued that Mason was simply projecting humanlike feelings and emotions onto these rat “rescues”—a tendency known as anthropomorphism.8
“We don’t have evidence that there is an internal first-person experience that leads the animal to do it，” Kacelnik tells me. “Do they experience any emotion when helping a partner？ It may as well be， but we don’t know.”
In a response to Mason’s study， Kacelnik and his colleagues wrote that tiny ants can also appear as if they are “rescuing” other ants in some situations. But ants are nearly brainless， and few consider them capable of empathy.
Alan Silberberg， a psychologist at American University， also wondered if Mason was inferring too much from the data.9 In his view， the free rat opened the cage for selfish reasons： It liked playing with the other rat. He published a paper replicating Mason’s design， but with a twist.10 He showed when the rats couldn’t play with each other after the trap opened， the free rat wasn’t as interested in conducting the jailbreak11.
These criticisms don’t mean Mason’s findings are incorrect. But they do illustrate a core difficulty in studying animal empathy： While it’s easy to observe animal behavior， it’s near impossible to confirm the motivations behind that behavior.
The quest to understand animal empathy has been long and fraught， but it isn’t trivial.12 If animals can indeed feel emotions like our own， the revelation may one day lead to treatments for conditions where social bonding is difficult—like in autism—or is nonexistent， like in sociopathy.13 We should care whether animals have empathy. It would mean animal brains are not that different from our own.
For decades， scientists trying to study animal empathy have run into a simple fundamental14 problem. Early experiments to prove that animals have empathy were all confounded15 by this limitation.
The wrong conclusion to take away from all these studies is that these rodents16 are humanlike. The right conclusion is that we’re animal-like.
Frans de Waal is one of the world’s leading primate behavior researchers. Since the 1970s， he’s made thousands of observations of primate communities. He’s shown that many primates will console17 one another after fights. He’s seen them hug and kiss. In 2010， he co-authored a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science compiling data from more than 3，000 observations of chimpanzee fights.18 The paper found that chimps will commonly console the losers of fights—a behavior especially pronounced among chimps with kinship19 bonds.
De Waal thinks it’s wrongheaded for some scientists to dismiss observations of empathy in animals.20 After all， it makes sense from an evolutionary perspective.21 If human empathy is so robust and adaptive， it must have evolved from more primitive forms.22
If human and animal empathy are the same， it means lessons learned from the brains of animals can be applied to heal23 our own.
Young， a neuroscientist at Emory University， is hopeful his continued work on prairie voles will yield animal models for psychiatric drugs.24 With a good animal model he could， in theory， test whether a drug would make the prairie voles more or less likely to comfort one another. He could test to see if there are certain genes responsible for empathetic behavior， and target those for intervention25.
Perhaps the fluffy， heartsick prairie vole can open that door.26
We still don’t know how many animals can actually empathize. But the mounting studies suggest there’s a fundamental baseline，27 at least among mammals.
The capacities may vary depending on how animal societies are structured. Chimps and primates are thought to have the most humanlike emotional capacities. Dogs have evolved to live in packs and are attuned to our emotional needs.28 Cats， evolved to be solitary29 hunters， care much less.
But what difference does it make if chimps know why they’re helping out a friend？ Isn’t it enough that they engage in the behavior， just like we do？ “Let’s say you are living in a house with children， and you are crying， and your children approach you and touch you，” de Waal says. “You’re not， at that moment， thinking， ‘Are they now altruistic30 or selfish when they do this？’ That would be a silly distinction. Because your children are responding to your emotions.”
That’s all that really matters.
老鼠有同情心吗？当同伴身陷囹圄，它们会出手相救吗？神经生物学家经实验发现，面对分别“关押”着美味巧克力和另一只小伙伴的两个笼子，外面的小老鼠竟选择鱼和熊掌得兼也——它不但救出了伙伴，还和它一起分享巧克力。然而，它的做法究竟是因为同情笼子里的小鼠，还是因为想让它出来和自己玩的一己私念呢？让我们一起来探究动物们的小心思吧。
1. neurobiologist： 神经生物学家。
2. primate： 灵长目动物。
3. beady-eyed： 目光锐利的，眼睛如珠的。
4. hatch： 小门，开口。
5. mammal： 哺乳动物。
6. evolve： 进化，演变。
7. skepticism： 怀疑的态度。
8. 行为生态学家亚历克斯·卡塞尔尼克认为，梅森仅仅是人把类似人类的情感安在了老鼠的“救援”行为上，这只是一种众所周知的拟人论。project sth. onto sth.：（尤指无意识地）投射（自己的感觉给别人）； anthropomorphism： 拟人论。
9. psychologist： 心理学家； infer： 推断，推论。
10. replicate： 复制；twist： 扭转，改变。
11. jailbreak： 越狱。
12. quest： 探求；fraught： 令人忧虑的，担心的；trivial： 不重要的。
13. 如果动物像人类一样具有情感，那么这一启示将有可能用于治疗社会关系困难或缺失性病症，如孤独症和反社会型人格异常。 revelation： 启示，揭露；autism： 自闭症，孤独症；sociopathy： 反社会型人格异常。
14. fundamental： 基本的，根本的。
15. confound：（问题等）把……难住，使不知所措。
16. rodent： 啮齿动物。
17. console： 安慰。
18. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science： 《美国国家科学研究院学报》；compile： 编纂，汇编；chimpanzee： 黑猩猩，下文的chimp为口语用法。
19. kinship： 亲属关系。
20. wrongheaded： 坚持错误的，执迷不悟的；dismiss： 不予理会，不予考虑。
21. evolutionary： 进化论的，进化的；perspective： 看法，观点。
22. robust：（观点、见解）强有力的；adaptive： 适应的，适合的；primitive： 原始的。
23. heal： 治愈，治疗。
24. neuroscientist： 神经科学家； prairie vole： 草原田鼠；yield： 提供，给予；psychiatric： 精神病治疗的。
25. intervention： 介入，干预。
26. fluffy： 毛茸茸的，松软的； heartsick： 沮丧的，苦恼的。
27. mounting： 逐渐增加的； baseline： 基准，标准。
28. live in packs： 群体生活；be attuned to： 习惯于。
29. solitary： 单独的，独居的。
30. altruistic： 无私心的，利他的。
But what she was witnessing in the lab was telling her something very different. In experiments， Mason and her colleagues at the University of Chicago were finding that when one rat was placed near another jailed rat， the free rat would open the hatch4 for a rescue—something it wouldn’t do for a toy rat. What’s more， when given the choice between saving a fellow rat and some delicious chocolate， the free rat would open both cells and then share.
The study， published in Science in 2011， was a breakthrough. If rats were capable of basic forms of empathy， then perhaps empathy was common—or even universal—among mammals5. Studying animal empathy could give us insight into how human empathy evolved6.
But almost immediately， Mason’s results met intense skepticism7.
Alex Kacelnik， a behavioral ecologist， argued that Mason was simply projecting humanlike feelings and emotions onto these rat “rescues”—a tendency known as anthropomorphism.8
“We don’t have evidence that there is an internal first-person experience that leads the animal to do it，” Kacelnik tells me. “Do they experience any emotion when helping a partner？ It may as well be， but we don’t know.”
In a response to Mason’s study， Kacelnik and his colleagues wrote that tiny ants can also appear as if they are “rescuing” other ants in some situations. But ants are nearly brainless， and few consider them capable of empathy.
Alan Silberberg， a psychologist at American University， also wondered if Mason was inferring too much from the data.9 In his view， the free rat opened the cage for selfish reasons： It liked playing with the other rat. He published a paper replicating Mason’s design， but with a twist.10 He showed when the rats couldn’t play with each other after the trap opened， the free rat wasn’t as interested in conducting the jailbreak11.
These criticisms don’t mean Mason’s findings are incorrect. But they do illustrate a core difficulty in studying animal empathy： While it’s easy to observe animal behavior， it’s near impossible to confirm the motivations behind that behavior.
The quest to understand animal empathy has been long and fraught， but it isn’t trivial.12 If animals can indeed feel emotions like our own， the revelation may one day lead to treatments for conditions where social bonding is difficult—like in autism—or is nonexistent， like in sociopathy.13 We should care whether animals have empathy. It would mean animal brains are not that different from our own.
For decades， scientists trying to study animal empathy have run into a simple fundamental14 problem. Early experiments to prove that animals have empathy were all confounded15 by this limitation.
The wrong conclusion to take away from all these studies is that these rodents16 are humanlike. The right conclusion is that we’re animal-like.
Frans de Waal is one of the world’s leading primate behavior researchers. Since the 1970s， he’s made thousands of observations of primate communities. He’s shown that many primates will console17 one another after fights. He’s seen them hug and kiss. In 2010， he co-authored a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science compiling data from more than 3，000 observations of chimpanzee fights.18 The paper found that chimps will commonly console the losers of fights—a behavior especially pronounced among chimps with kinship19 bonds.
De Waal thinks it’s wrongheaded for some scientists to dismiss observations of empathy in animals.20 After all， it makes sense from an evolutionary perspective.21 If human empathy is so robust and adaptive， it must have evolved from more primitive forms.22
If human and animal empathy are the same， it means lessons learned from the brains of animals can be applied to heal23 our own.
Young， a neuroscientist at Emory University， is hopeful his continued work on prairie voles will yield animal models for psychiatric drugs.24 With a good animal model he could， in theory， test whether a drug would make the prairie voles more or less likely to comfort one another. He could test to see if there are certain genes responsible for empathetic behavior， and target those for intervention25.
Perhaps the fluffy， heartsick prairie vole can open that door.26
We still don’t know how many animals can actually empathize. But the mounting studies suggest there’s a fundamental baseline，27 at least among mammals.
The capacities may vary depending on how animal societies are structured. Chimps and primates are thought to have the most humanlike emotional capacities. Dogs have evolved to live in packs and are attuned to our emotional needs.28 Cats， evolved to be solitary29 hunters， care much less.
But what difference does it make if chimps know why they’re helping out a friend？ Isn’t it enough that they engage in the behavior， just like we do？ “Let’s say you are living in a house with children， and you are crying， and your children approach you and touch you，” de Waal says. “You’re not， at that moment， thinking， ‘Are they now altruistic30 or selfish when they do this？’ That would be a silly distinction. Because your children are responding to your emotions.”
That’s all that really matters.
老鼠有同情心吗？当同伴身陷囹圄，它们会出手相救吗？神经生物学家经实验发现，面对分别“关押”着美味巧克力和另一只小伙伴的两个笼子，外面的小老鼠竟选择鱼和熊掌得兼也——它不但救出了伙伴，还和它一起分享巧克力。然而，它的做法究竟是因为同情笼子里的小鼠，还是因为想让它出来和自己玩的一己私念呢？让我们一起来探究动物们的小心思吧。
1. neurobiologist： 神经生物学家。
2. primate： 灵长目动物。
3. beady-eyed： 目光锐利的，眼睛如珠的。
4. hatch： 小门，开口。
5. mammal： 哺乳动物。
6. evolve： 进化，演变。
7. skepticism： 怀疑的态度。
8. 行为生态学家亚历克斯·卡塞尔尼克认为，梅森仅仅是人把类似人类的情感安在了老鼠的“救援”行为上，这只是一种众所周知的拟人论。project sth. onto sth.：（尤指无意识地）投射（自己的感觉给别人）； anthropomorphism： 拟人论。
9. psychologist： 心理学家； infer： 推断，推论。
10. replicate： 复制；twist： 扭转，改变。
11. jailbreak： 越狱。
12. quest： 探求；fraught： 令人忧虑的，担心的；trivial： 不重要的。
13. 如果动物像人类一样具有情感，那么这一启示将有可能用于治疗社会关系困难或缺失性病症，如孤独症和反社会型人格异常。 revelation： 启示，揭露；autism： 自闭症，孤独症；sociopathy： 反社会型人格异常。
14. fundamental： 基本的，根本的。
15. confound：（问题等）把……难住，使不知所措。
16. rodent： 啮齿动物。
17. console： 安慰。
18. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science： 《美国国家科学研究院学报》；compile： 编纂，汇编；chimpanzee： 黑猩猩，下文的chimp为口语用法。
19. kinship： 亲属关系。
20. wrongheaded： 坚持错误的，执迷不悟的；dismiss： 不予理会，不予考虑。
21. evolutionary： 进化论的，进化的；perspective： 看法，观点。
22. robust：（观点、见解）强有力的；adaptive： 适应的，适合的；primitive： 原始的。
23. heal： 治愈，治疗。
24. neuroscientist： 神经科学家； prairie vole： 草原田鼠；yield： 提供，给予；psychiatric： 精神病治疗的。
25. intervention： 介入，干预。
26. fluffy： 毛茸茸的，松软的； heartsick： 沮丧的，苦恼的。
27. mounting： 逐渐增加的； baseline： 基准，标准。
28. live in packs： 群体生活；be attuned to： 习惯于。
29. solitary： 单独的，独居的。
30. altruistic： 无私心的，利他的。