The Empathy/Imitation Continuum in Monkeys and Apes
Frans B. M. de Waal
Living Links Center, Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, Atlanta, USA
The possibility that animals have empathy and sympathy has received little systematic attention due to an excessive fear of anthropomorphism and a taboo on animal emotions. Actual animal behavior, however, would lead one to agree with Charles Darwin that "Many animals certainly sympathize with each other's distress or danger." In my own work with monkeys and apes, I have found many cases of one individual coming to another's rescue in a fight, putting an arm around a previous victim of attack, or other emotional responses to distressed others, known as consolation behavior. In fact, the entire communication system of nonhuman primates seems emotionally mediated. Empathy has many levels, from basic perception-action mechanisms (probably related to mirror neurons) to ever greater cognitive elaborations that include taking another's perspective. The same perception-action mechanisms underlie behavioral facilitation, stimulus enhancement, and imitation. Our studies on both monkeys and apes indicate a strong inclination to identify with specific others and copy their behavior. The functional side of this empathy/imitation continuum is to be found in prosocial tendencies and cooperation, on the one hand, and cultural transmission, on the other.