Do Animals Have Emotions
31 July 2013
Do Animals Really Have Emotions? Animal emotion is a difficult and controversial subject. Scientific research is confirming what humans intuitively know: that animals have feelings and able to experience diverse types of emotions. Skeptics believe there are no possible ways animals can have emotions. They refuse the idea animals experience happiness or any other type of emotions as anthropomorphism; which occurs when humans project their own characteristics or behaviors to animals. Josh Clark offers an example of this phenomenon: the story of Hachiko, a dog that lived in Japan. Every day, this dog and his owner went to the train station. The dog was there every afternoon waiting for his owner to come back, but when his owners died, the loyal Hachiko spent the rest of his life going back to the train station to wait for his owner. Opponents of animal emotions argue the dog acted by instinct, he was used to go to the train station every day; this does not mean he was being loyal to his owner. Animals have not the capacity of thinking or the skills to analyze how a situation makes them feel. But, are animals really showing emotions or are they just acting instinctively?
Recently, the study of animal emotions is an active and developing subject of science; interest in animal emotions is increasing among scientists. With the intention of proving that animals have feelings; Dr. Jaak Panksepp, has been researching animal behavior since 1979. As a professor of Physiology and Neuroscience in Washington State University; he conducted a remarkable investigation with rats. His study consists of placing several sensors that control rough and tumble play in rats. When the volume of those sensors is increased, the playfulness in the rats is reduced, suggesting that some type of communication occurred among those rats. Consequently, rats were less willing to play. As a part of this experiment, rats are tickled on a regular basis to record their response. Rats
Do Animals Really Have Emotions? Animal emotion is a difficult and controversial subject. Scientific research is confirming what humans intuitively know: that animals have feelings and able to experience diverse types of emotions. Skeptics believe there are no possible ways animals can have emotions. They refuse the idea animals experience happiness or any other type of emotions as anthropomorphism; which occurs when humans project their own characteristics or behaviors to animals. Josh Clark offers an example of this phenomenon: the story of Hachiko, a dog that lived in Japan. Every day, this dog and his owner went to the train station. The dog was there every afternoon waiting for his owner to come back, but when his owners died, the loyal Hachiko spent the rest of his life going back to the train station to wait for his owner. Opponents of animal emotions argue the dog acted by instinct, he was used to go to the train station every day; this does not mean he was being loyal to his owner. Animals have not the capacity of thinking or the skills to analyze how a situation makes them feel. But, are animals really showing emotions or are they just acting instinctively?
Recently, the study of animal emotions is an active and developing subject of science; interest in animal emotions is increasing among scientists. With the intention of proving that animals have feelings; Dr. Jaak Panksepp, has been researching animal behavior since 1979. As a professor of Physiology and Neuroscience in Washington State University; he conducted a remarkable investigation with rats. His study consists of placing several sensors that control rough and tumble play in rats. When the volume of those sensors is increased, the playfulness in the rats is reduced, suggesting that some type of communication occurred among those rats. Consequently, rats were less willing to play. As a part of this experiment, rats are tickled on a regular basis to record their response. Rats
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