1.1 How people attribute human-like traits to animals
Now watch the following video in which other people answer the same questions as you just did in Activity 1. Think about how the views expressed in the video are similar to or different from your own.
Download this video clip.Video player: Everyday perspectives: animal minds
Transcript: Everyday perspectives: animal minds
[Do animals feel emotions? What evidence is there for animal emotions?]
SIMON (Veterinary surgeon)
Animals do feel emotions in my opinion. I work with animals every day. And you have happy animals, you have sad animals. It’s quite obvious that they do feel emotions. It’s just difficult sometimes to interpret the language that they’re showing you as those emotions.
We look at emotions in terms of welfare. And we’re certainly looking in terms of whether animals are sad and in pain. And we have recognised ways of looking at how animals behave to recognise pain. So there are actual tables and scales out there to recognise how animals are feeling in terms of very simple things, like pain.
When we’re making decisions about euthanasia: Is an animal unhappy? We have to make lots of questions about how they’re behaving. And we make subjective judgements on how they behave and whether they are happy, and whether quality of life is adequate.
BIANCA
I definitely think that my cat experiences joy and happy emotions. It could be any situation like just even letting her out into the garden. You can tell the difference in her whole body language. You can see the joy through her tail, even. It tends to kind of move a lot more than it would do if she’s just calm and lain down. And, yeah, her whole presence is very different.
She becomes a lot louder if she really is wanting something. Say, if she is hungry, her meow will be a lot louder than if she just wants some attention. I think, I’m not sure, but I think she might be feeling fear almost. Am I going to get this or aren’t I?
SIMON
My evidence is purely anecdotal from my observations. It’s very obvious you can see happiness in dogs, and sadness in dogs, and equally in cats. It’s how we recognise that a lot is difficult. Sometimes how they exhibit those signs is not as obvious or intuitive as we possibly think they should be.
[Can animals deceive?]
ELISHA
I’d say they are clever enough to deceive if they need something, if it’s something they’re looking for. If they were trying to hunt or get something, they’d be able to deceive another animal in order to get what they need to get to survive. I don’t think it’s deception the way we would deceive people. I think it’s more of a survival instinct.
BIANCA
Actually, I have experienced it with my cat. She, again, it’s in terms of food. She’s a very greedy cat. So if someone comes downstairs, first person down in the morning, you’ll hear her meowing. She’ll want some food. We feed her.
It could be a couple of hours later. Someone’s come down from bed, doesn’t know that she’s been fed, and again she’ll meow in exactly the same way. Makes the person think, yep, she hasn’t been fed, let’s feed her. She’ll get fed. She’s happy. She’s been fed twice, and that happens quite often, so we do keep an eye on her now.
[How similar are human and non-human animals?]
SIMON
My feeling would be in terms of how similar animals and humans are is not as similar as people think. I think a lot of people put their own emotions and their own feelings into their animals. In my day-to-day life, I get that an awful lot, and I don’t think that that is valid, and I don’t think they think like us. We are different.
The most similar animals to us would be the animals that have the similar kind of society to us. So, to my mind, that would be chimps, social animals, because I think that’s what a lot of our behaviours are derived from, and a lot of our feelings.
Everyday perspectives: animal minds
Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).
Reflecting on your answers to Activity 1, and the answers given by the people in the video clip you just watched, you will have probably noticed that people are very willing to attribute human-like mental attributes (such as emotions, beliefs, goals and intentions) to animals.
But what is the evidence for this supposition, apart from human observations and interpretations of animal behaviours? To what extent do animals ‘think’ and have mental experiences similar to those of humans?