The Raven is capable of showing a degree of empathy towards its peers, previously thought only to be present in apes. Ravens console each other after conflicts!
After a friend has a stressful event in their lives, it is human nature to want to console that person. Maybe give them a hug, or just spend some time with them to ease their distress. A new study suggests that ravens have a similar emotional depth. In the study, after a conflict between ravens (defined as chase-flight, hitting or forced retreat), they found that the victim would often be approached in a friendly way by another raven, or sometimes the victim would seek out another raven. These interactions were terms bystander affiliation and solicited bystander affiliation.
The researchers attempted to answer the question: Does this behavior suggest empathy or does it serve some other function? After observing the birds in an aviary over a two-year period, the authors suggest that the birds are actually feeling empathy.
“According to the predictive framework, our findings are consistent with a distress-alleviating function for bystander affiliation and should thus be considered to be consolation,” the study says. “The term ‘consolation’, however, infers not only the function of the interaction, alleviating the victim’s post-conflict distress, but also its mechanism, empathy for the distressed victim.”
They found that in both bystander affiliation and solicited bystander affiliation situations, the birds affiliating often shared a valuable relationship.
Lead author Orlaith N. Fraser, said the ravens’ behavior was surprisingly similar to that of other species’. “The most surprising outcome of the study was that the ravens seemed to behave in exactly the same way as apes in terms of deciding whether and when consolation should be provided and by whom, despite the large differences in their evolutionary history and the way in which they live,” she said.
Another reminder to treat all living things with the utmost respect!
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