Emotional contagion and prosocial behavior in rodents

Christian Keysers; Ewelina Knapska; Marta A Moita; Valeria Gazzola

doi:10.1016/j.tics.2022.05.005

Emotional contagion and prosocial behavior in rodents

Christian Keysers, Ewelina Knapska, Marta A Moita, Valeria Gazzola

Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience (NIN)

Research output: Contribution to journal/periodical › Article › Scientific › peer-review

65 Citations (Scopus)

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Abstract

Empathy is critical to adjusting our behavior to the state of others. The past decade dramatically deepened our understanding of the biological origin of this capacity. We now understand that rodents robustly show emotional contagion for the distress of others via neural structures homologous to those involved in human empathy. Their propensity to approach others in distress strengthens this effect. Although rodents can also learn to favor behaviors that benefit others via structures overlapping with those of emotional contagion, they do so less reliably and more selectively. Together, this suggests evolution selected mechanisms for emotional contagion to prepare animals for dangers by using others as sentinels. Such shared emotions additionally can, under certain circumstances, promote prosocial behavior.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	688-706
Journal	Trends in Cognitive Sciences
Volume	26
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2022.05.005
Publication status	Published - 03 Jun 2022

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Emotional contagion and prosocial behavior in rodents

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