C. Driscoll Sigma Xi Student Research Showcase

1. D O E S
E M P A T H E T I C
P E R S P E C T I V E
- T A K I N G O R
P E R S O N A L
D I S T R E S S
M O T I V A T E
H E L P I N G
B E H A V I O R I N
R A T S ?
C A R O L I N E D R I S C O L L
S I G M A X I S T U D E N T R E S E A R C H
S H O W C A S E

2. Empathy
(de Waal, 2008)
• Capacity to be affected by and share the
emotional states of others & discern the
cause of another’s emotional state
(Preston & de Waal, 2002).
• Typically measured in response to another’s
distress
• Empathy includes various emotional
responses ranging from more basic
capabilities to more complex facilitated by
increased intelligence (de Waal, 2008)

3. Why Study Empathy?
• Evolutionarily interesting to understand how an
other-oriented behavior evolved
• Parental care
• Cooperation, Reciprocity
• Disorders marked by lack of empathy
• Congenital insensitivity to pain (de Waal & Preston, 2017)
• Narcissistic personality disorder (Ritter et al., 2011)
• Psychopathy (Blair et al., 1997)
• Autism Spectrum Disorder (Frith & Happé, 2005)
• Weapon against xenophobia (de Waal, 2005)

4. Empathy
• Evidence of other animals across various
taxa displaying basic emotional contagion
Emotional contagion is found in humans and many other social animals.
(Palagi et al., 2012)
• Once considered a uniquely human trait
• Research shifted to investigating more
complex empathetic abilities in highly
social, large brained mammals
• Sympathetic concern  Consolation behavior
• Empathetic perspective-taking  Targeted helping
behavior
Asian elephants reassure others in
distress (Plotnik & de Waal, 2014)
Female bystanders assist laboring female
bonobo (Demuru et al., 2018)
(Reviewed in Perez-Manrique & Gomila, 2018)

5. Evolution of empathy
• Continued inquiry into the evolution of
empathy led to examining these more
sophisticated empathetic abilities in
smaller brained mammals
• Bartal et al. (2011, 2014, 2016) sparked
a series of experiments that found rats
learned to open the door of a restrainer
to release a trapped and distressed
cage-mate
Getty J. Decety

6. Underlying motivations
To better understand rodent
empathy, and the evolution of
empathy in general, our study
aimed to investigate the
underlying motivations of helping
behavior in rats
(de Waal, 2008)

7. Underlying motivations
If helping behavior is motivated
by empathetic perspective-
taking, rats will continue to
release their trapped cage-mate
even when an option to escape
is present.
(de Waal, 2008)

8. The
Restrainer
Modified Door
Can only be opened from outside
Distress was induced by confinement in restrainer
Measured free rat’s response to their trapped and distress cagemate
Pull down to side
Knock up with snout

9. Methods
• Rats were housed in same-sex pairs
undisturbed for 2 weeks to establish
familiarity and establish social bonds
• Tested in pairs
• Measured for boldness
• More bold = free rat
• Less bold = trapped rat
• Handled extensively and habituated to arena
for four days before trials started
• Reduce handling anxiety
• Reduce exploratory behaviors
 Rats were exposed to restrainer during
habituation, but modified door was not present
• Free rats had no prior experience with door
before trials began (Bartal et al., 2011).
Wilson & Ham snuggling in their home cage

10. • Four Groups: Twelve 60 min trials
• Social Control
• Trapped cagemate in restrainer
• Free rat does not have escape alternative
• Experimental
• Trapped cagemate in restrainer
• Free rat has escape alternative
• Empty Control No Escape
• Restrainer is empty
• Free rat does not have escape alternative
• Empty Control w/ Escape
• Restrainer is empty
• Free rat has escape alternative
All trials were recorded
using video camcorders &
ultrasonic microphones
Escape area where distress
cues of trapped cagemate
are greatly diminished

11. Experimental Trials
• Each trial lasted 60 minutes
• If free rat had not opened door by 40 min mark, researcher went in an
opened door halfway
• Greatly facilitating door-opening behavior by either rat (Bartal et al., 2011)
• Decreases learned helplessness in trapped rat (Maier & Seligman, 1976)

12. Measurements
• All trials were video & audio recorded
• Video
• Door opened: Y/N
• Door opening latency
• Time spent within 5cm of restrainer
• Time spent in escape area
• Experimental & Empty control w/ escape
• Audio
• Number of distress calls (~22 kHz) before and after door-opening

13. Findings
X2 (1, N=11) = .25, p = .61
TREATMENT Number of Door
Openers
Social Control 3/11
Experimental 2/11
Empty Control No Escape 0/6
Empty Control w/ Escape 0/6
Suggests option to leave had no influence
on behavior
Doesn’t tell whole story….

14. Additional Measurements
• Time spent in close proximity to
restrainer
• Trapped cage-mate groups vs empty
control groups
… because low rate of of door-opening interpreted as lack
of sympathetic concern or empathetic perspective-taking
• Time spent in escape area
• Experimental group vs Empty control
w/ escape
• Ultrasonic vocalizations
• Distress calls
Still Need to Be Analyzed

15. Future Work
• Does the introduction of a cost temper empathetic response?
• Vocalizations
o Understanding the role communication plays in solicitation of help
 Do ultrasonic calls differ based on context?
Evolution of empathy
Requirements for empathy

16. References
• Bartal, I.B.A., Decety, J. & Mason, P. 2011. Empathy and pro-social behavior in rats. Science, 334(6061):1427-1430.
• Bartal, I.B.A., Rodgers, D.A., Sarria, M.S.B., Decety, J. & Mason, P. 2014. Pro-social behavior in rats is modulated by social experience. Elife, 3, p.e01385.
• Ben-Ami Bartal, I., Shan, H., Molasky, N.M., Murray, T.M., Williams, J.Z., Decety, J. & Mason, P. 2016. Anxiolytic treatment impairs helping behavior in rats. Frontiers in
Psychology, 7:850.
• Blair, R.J.R., Jones, L., Clark, F. & Smith, M. 1997. The psychopathic individual: A lack of responsiveness to distress cues?. Psychophysiology, 34(2):192-198.
• Demuru, E., Ferrari, P.F. & Palagi, E. 2018. Is birth attendance a uniquely human feature? New evidence suggests that Bonobo females protect and support the parturient.
Evolution and human behavior, 39(5):502-510.
• de Waal, F.B. 2005. Evolution of Empathy. Greater Good Magazine. [Internet] [cited 2021 February 23]. Available from
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_evolution_of_empathy
• de Waal, F.B. 2008. Putting the altruism back into altruism: the evolution of empathy. Annu. Rev. Psychol., 59:279-300.
• de Waal, F.B. & Preston, S.D. 2017. Mammalian empathy: behavioural manifestations and neural basis. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 18(8): 498-509.
• Frith, U. and Happé, F. 2005. Autism spectrum disorder. Current biology, 15(19): R786-R790.
• Palagi, E., Norscia, I. & Demuru, E. 2014. Yawn contagion in humans and bonobos: emotional affinity matters more than species. PeerJ, 2:e519.
• Pérez‐Manrique, A. & Gomila, A. 2018. The comparative study of empathy: sympathetic concern and empathic perspective‐taking in non‐human animals. Biological Reviews, 93(1):
248-269.
• Plotnik, J.M. & de Waal, F.B. 2014. Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) reassure others in distress. PeerJ, 2:e278.
• Preston, S. D. & de Waal, F. B. M. 2002. Empathy: its ultimate and proximate bases. Behav. Brain Sci. 25:1–71.
• Ritter, K., Dziobek, I., Preißler, S., Rüter, A., Vater, A., Fydrich, T., Lammers, C.H., Heekeren, H.R. & Roepke, S. 2011. Lack of empathy in patients with narcissistic personality
disorder. Psychiatry Research, 187(1-2): 241-247.

17. Acknowledgements
• Lee Dugatkin
• Jeraan Fernando
• Cynthia Corbitt
• Frans de Waal
• Perri Eason
• Paul Ewald
• UofL Animal Care Staff
• Graduate Student Council
• Biology Graduate Student
Association
• Exec. VP of Research & Innovation
• College of Arts & Sciences
• Graduate Networking in A&S