科学家发现老鼠也有同情心
科学家发现老鼠也有“同情心”
2011/12/11 22:27:40
老鼠也和人类一样有同情心。美国研究人员发现，让老鼠选择享用巧克力或是协助受困的同胞逃脱，它们会选择帮助同伴。
美国芝加哥大学研究人员在期刊《科学》发表的报告指出，即使这些低等动物也会表现出爱心。芝加哥大学心理学和精神病学教授德塞蒂说：“这是科学界第一次取得证据，证实老鼠出于同情心而有帮助同伴的行为。”
研究人员将30只老鼠成对关在一起，每对在一个笼里关两个星期。然后把配对老鼠放进一个新笼子，其中一只被困住，另一只行动自由。当自由鼠看到同伴和听到其叫声时，会表现得较激动。
困住老鼠的围栏门不容易开，但大多数老鼠都会一再尝试，并在三至七天内打开。一旦学会了，每次自由老被放进笼里时，就会直接跑去开门。但如果被关的是毛绒玩具老鼠，不是同伴，自由鼠就不会去救。
当研究员在笼里放几块巧克力时，自由鼠会先咬住巧克力，然后去放出同伴，还让同伴吃剩下的巧克力。自由鼠表现出分享行为的比例为52％。若没有同伴需要它们去救，它们会把巧克力吃光。
Empathy and Pro-Social Behavior in Rats
Bartal, Inbal Ben-Ami; Decety, Jean; Mason, Peggy
Science, 2011, 334(6061): 1427-1430
Whereas human pro-social behavior is often driven by empathic concern for another, it is unclear whether nonprimate mammals experience a similar motivational state. To test for empathically motivated pro-social behavior in rodents, we placed a free rat in an arena with a cagemate trapped in a restrainer. After several sessions, the free rat learned to intentionally and quickly open the restrainer and free the cagemate. Rats did not open empty or object-containing restrainers. They freed cagemates even when social contact was prevented. When liberating a cagemate was pitted against chocolate contained within a second restrainer, rats opened both restrainers and typically shared the chocolate. Thus, rats behave pro-socially in response to a conspecific’s distress, providing strong evidence for biological roots of empathically motivated helping behavior.