Are Chimpanzees Capable of
Understanding and Recognizing Emotions?
It is widely known that some wild
animals have a certain instinct to be noble towards human beings. We
have all heard stories of how dolphins have saved human lives by keeping them
from drowning, or how dog and cat owner's can rely on their pets' loving and
comforting them during a time of gloom or even protecting them during a time of
danger. “But what about a Labrador retriever that barked for an hour in the
snow to summon help for a stranger who had fallen into a river; or Beauty, a
horse that, while swimming in a rushing river to try and save her colt, nudged
a stranger toward the safety of the shore before rescuing her foal, questions
scientist and author of Beauty in the Beasts: True Stories of Animals Who
Choose to Do Good, Kristin Von Kreisler” (Steindorf). Stories like these
seem to show that animals are capable of experiencing some of the same strong
feelings that humans can experience - feelings of virtue, courage, compassion,
or even morality. Are these animals capable of understanding and recognizing
emotions? Do they have feelings? There is no better animal to study in search
for an answer to these questions, and in the quest for understanding the
importance of animal diversity and adaptation concerning the issue of animals
and the human-like emotions they experience, than man's closest living
relative, the chimpanzee.
Chimpanzees are very similar to human
beings. One can place a chimpanzee and
a human next to each other and point out several physical attributes that are
similar, or even the same, between both animals: they both have hands, feet,
and legs that resemble one another’s; both have eyes, a mouth, and a nose in
comparatively the same areas on the face; and both human’s and chimpanzee’s
body parts are relatively the same in size and proportion to their bodies. But what about the amazing similarities that
one cannot point out by just looking and comparing their physical
characteristics? There have been
uncountable studies performed on this very subject. One scientist in particular, professor of primate behavior Frans
B.M. de Waal, has devoted much of his career to researching the differences and
similarities between humans and nonhuman primates, with an emphasis on chimpanzees. In 1977 the Yerkes Regional Primate Research
Center at Emory University in Atlanta “established a Living Links Center (LLC)
at the Yerkes field station in Lawrenceville, Georgia. The center’s director, de Waal, is very fond
of pointing out that human nuclear DNA appears to be 98.4 percent identical to
chimpanzee DNA” (http://www.the-scientist.com/yr1998/may/research_980511.html).
Some of the studies performed here have helped us realize that
“chimpanzees have warfare, some form of political system, and democracy – so
that low-ranking individuals can determine to some extent who will be the
high-ranking individuals” (http://www.the-scientist.com/yr1998/may/research_980511.html).
These are only a few of the amazing discoveries found about the
similarities between humans and chimpanzees since the development of the
center.
One recorded incident of chimpanzees
exhibiting a human-like emotion is by Laura Tangley of U.S. News magazine. She tells of how chimpanzees suffer from
grief: “In Tanzania, primatologists studying
chimpanzee behavior record the death of Flo, a troop’s 50-year-old
matriarch. Throughout the following day, Flo’s son, Flint, sits
beside his mother’s lifeless body, occasionally taking her hand and whimpering. Over the next few weeks, Flint grows
increasingly listless, withdrawing from the troop – despite his siblings’ efforts to bring him back
– and refusing food. Three weeks after
Flo’s death, the formerly healthy young chimp
is dead, too.”
Yet another recorded incident, which can
be found in one of de Waal’s popular books about primate behavior, describes
the first chimpanzee birth ever witnessed: “Unexpectedly, the entire Yerkes
chimp colony of about 200 animals gathered in silence around the mother-to-be
that soon squatted and
delivered the newborn into her own hands.
The mother’s closest companion, an elder female named Atlanta (who has had quite a few infants of her
own), screamed in reaction to the birth, embraced two other chimpanzees, and spent the next several
weeks closely attending the mother and
her offspring.” Is it possible that the emotional reaction of Atlanta
reflected empathy, which is closely related to the understanding of what was
happening to her friend in that particular situation?
These are only a couple of examples of
the human-like emotions that chimpanzees experience. Still, the idea of animals feeling emotions remains controversial
among many scientists. Laura Tangley of
U.S. News magazine states that these “reasearchers’ skepticism is fueled in
part by their professional aversion to anthropomorphism, the very nonscientific
tendency to attribute human qualities to nonhumans.” Tangley also states that “many scientists say that it is
impossible to prove animals have emotions using standard scientific methods –
repeatable observations that can be manipulated in controlled experiments –
leading them to conclude that such feelings must not exist.” As you can see, that is why this is a very
touchy and controversial subject.
Nowadays, with more and more research being done and the many
advancements in science, we can look at the chimpanzee genome, and also their
brain stimulus:
“Some ‘hard’ scientific evidence for animal feelings show that there are
many similarities between the brains of humans
and animals. In animals and in humans,
emotions seem to arise from ancient parts of the brain that are located below the cortex, regions that have
been conserved across many species throughout evolution. The hormone oxytocin
is associated with both sexual activity and maternal bonding in people. It is released, for example, when mothers are nursing their
infants. Now it looks like as though
the same hormone affects attachment among animals.” These new discoveries and the uncountable amounts of scientific
research are only the beginnings of the quest for understanding how similar the
emotions that we feel are to those emotions that our closely related primate
chimpanzees feel, and how important that information is to answering questions
about animal adaptation and evolution.
Sources:
Bunk, Steve. Interdisciplinary Study
of Nonhuman Primates Gains Ground. http://www.the-scientist.com/yr1998/may/research_980511.html
Steindorf, Sara. Unbeastly Behavior.
Christian Science Monitor. 05-29-2001.
Tangley, Laura. Animal Emotions. http://www.usnews.com/issue/001030/animals.html