Biological roots of empathically motivated helping behaviour, strong evidence
Channel: Mavaddat Javid
Date: 2011-12-09

Can rats display empathy by alleviating the suffering of an unrelated rat?

To find out, psychologists Inbal Ben-Ami Bartal, Jean Decety, and Peggy Mason at the University of Chicago tested whether rats would rescue a trapped cagemate without any obvious reward.

The group found that rats would release trapped cagemates from restrainers, but ignored empty restrainers or those containing only a toy rat. In trials with chocolate as a distraction, the rats would free their trapped cagemate before sharing the chocolate, a preferred rat treat.

In the accompanying video, paper author Peggy Mason narrates several runs of the experiment.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/334/6061/1427