Can Dogs Express Empathy

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Empathy can be expressed in many different methods. It can be expressed through a simple touch or a thoughtful action. People can express empathy- which is the ability to feel what another is feeling, the ability to live and experience the feelings of another without direct connection to that person's situation. However, this is not solely owned by homosapiens. This gift to feel empathy and then express it through different means is shared with all mammals, especially with canines. There is a lot of scientific debate around whether or not dogs can feel empathy. In reality, there are multitude of ways in which dogs can express empathy and two means in which empathy can be expressed would be through emotional contagion and prosociality. One …show more content…

These voluntary actions are then used to express empathy because they are able to put themselves in the position of the other dog, thus they are willing to do “voluntary acts”. For instance, in “Task Differences and Prosociality; Investigating Pet Dogs’ Prosocial Preferences in a Token Choice Paradigm,” dogs in pair of twos were situated in a lab and one dog had the choice to press a button or pull a lever that would present their partner food. If the dog knew its partner, then the dog was more likely to be prosocial and generous and allow the other dog to eat. (Dale et al.). Thus showing empathy through being prosocial by actively aiding another dog in which this canine knew well. Consequently, both dogs would benefit as the first one feels validation because of its good deed, while the other is satisfied due to the fact that its basic needs are being met. However, as later seen in Dale et al.’s study, as much as a dog can be generous, it can also be apathetic and even cruel if it does not know the dog well enough. Later on in the study, the dogs were instead paired with a partner they did not know, and in those circumstances, the dogs were ten times more likely to not enable their partners to eat. That might be due to not pressing a mere switch or pulling a lever (Dale et al.). This shows that dogs can be apathetic and even antisocial by ignoring or not even noticing the signs being demonstrated by their partners. This further shows how dogs can convey empathy, because it illustrates these mammals’ ability to choose whether or not to internalize the other mammal’s situation and act upon it. Which shows that dogs possess a higher level of understanding in the ways in which these mammals can express and give empathy. In closing, while dogs can express empathy

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