Empathic Animals

Empathy is most simply defined as the capacity to identify with another being. It’s often described as the ability to “get into the someone else’s shoes.” Until recently empathy was considered to be a uniquely human quality (maybe because we’re the only creature to wear shoes?), but that’s changing. One of the principle researchers who has been shifting minds on the issue is Frans de Waal, a primatologist who has observed chimpanzees for decades. He tells us that empathy is exhibited by many kinds of animals.

The most basic expression of empathy is mimicking. You laugh, I laugh. I yawn, you yawn. I use threatening body language and you reciprocate. Scientists like de Waal have observed our cousins the apes mimicking (aping?) each other in many ways.

In humans empathy crosses cultures and languages. That’s a prime reason why nonhuman primates can show it: we don’t need to know how to communicate by words with someone to feel empathy. Laughing and yawning are universal behaviors; they come naturally.

Since researchers are finding that our ape cousins commonly exhibit empathy (now that they no longer doubt apes have it), we now understand that evolution gave us this capacity; i.e., we’ve acquired it naturally. Long ago we lived in small groups that survived by exhibiting cooperation and empathy. It’s what gave us humans an advantage. Those primate species that lacked empathy were a little less fit and became extinct. We capitalized on our social connections and ability to bond—attributes that were strengthened by our propensity to identify with each other.

In small groups we struggled to survive and we thrived—aided by our empathic qualities. But it goes only so far. Our feelings of empathy tend to be limited to those closest to us; those whom we know and to whom we feel connected. In the last 10thousand years or so we’ve settled down into dense enclaves and find ourselves increasingly competing for resources. Our empathy for the “other” under these circumstances tends to dwindle. Aggression quickly follows.

War has been so constant throughout recorded history that some of us find ourselves concluding that Homo sapiens is by nature an aggressive species that can’t seem to control its violent habits. But for 99.9% of our existence as a species cooperation and empathy were crucial and prevalent. Which really is us: the deeper empathic animal or the warlike creature? Is our aggression just a veneer that we’ve acquired in the last several thousand years—a veneer we might peel away to reveal our empathic core? Of course, both emotions are us; we are both warlike and cooperative. It’s our choice… to decide which one we want to prevail.