bigmouthlittlefists: katreus: In a simple experiment, researchers at the University of Chicago sought to find out whether a rat would release a fellow rat from an unpleasantly restrictive cage if it could. The answer was yes. The free rat, occasionally hearing distress calls from its compatriot, learned to open the cage and did so with greater efficiency over time. It would release the other animal even if there wasn’t the payoff of a reunion with it. Astonishingly, if given access to a small hoard of chocolate chips, the free rat would usually save at least one treat for the captive — which is a lot to expect of a rat. The researchers came to the unavoidable conclusion that what they were seeing was empathy — and apparently selfless behavior driven by that mental state. “A New Model of Empathy: The Rat” by David Brown, Washington Post  i’m slowly loving psychology more and more I heard about this on NPR last night.  I’ve always loved rats for their intelligence and misunderstood lives..  now this gives me another reason to love them.

bigmouthlittlefists:

katreus:

In a simple experiment, researchers at the University of Chicago sought to find out whether a rat would release a fellow rat from an unpleasantly restrictive cage if it could. The answer was yes.

The free rat, occasionally hearing distress calls from its compatriot, learned to open the cage and did so with greater efficiency over time. It would release the other animal even if there wasn’t the payoff of a reunion with it. Astonishingly, if given access to a small hoard of chocolate chips, the free rat would usually save at least one treat for the captive — which is a lot to expect of a rat.

The researchers came to the unavoidable conclusion that what they were seeing was empathy — and apparently selfless behavior driven by that mental state.

“A New Model of Empathy: The Rat” by David Brown, Washington Post

 i’m slowly loving psychology more and more

I heard about this on NPR last night.  I’ve always loved rats for their intelligence and misunderstood lives..  now this gives me another reason to love them.

Reblogged 2 months ago from discomfortingthought-deactivate (Originally from katreus)
27,390 notes
Tagged: rats, rat, science, behavior, psychology, empathy, non-bug posts, .
Source: Washington Post
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    This is so sweet & far more then most people would ever do for another human! And people say we’re the smart ones???
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