How Do Animals Express Their Love To Humans?
Society
“One police dog saved people from the earthquake, but he could not survive through this catastrophe.”
At first glance it is astonishing, and unbelievable that animals sacrifice their lives to save humans lives. We call this behavior altruistic behavior,which means showing selfless concern for others. Altruistic behavior is the abnormal phenomenon existing between humans and animals. Based on economic theory, individuals are selfish and strive to accomplish their own goals, so altruism presents as a confounding topic that will be explored in this paper. Specifically, this paper will answer: How do we define altruism? Under what circumstances do animals develop altruistic behavior to humans? What are the possible causes that make animals behave altruistically to humans?
In a species, kinship works as a prominent and valuable relationship to promote altruistic behaviors. When considering cross-species, it is also possible for humans and animals to develop kinship relationships. In addition to kinship, training provides the basis for promoting altruistic behaviors as well. Although some scholars believe that there is no link of altruism between humans and animals, kinship and training support the idea of altruism in cross-species such as humans and animals through the evidence of wolf and dogs.
First, the essay defines altruism and why this phenomenon exists in general terms. After that, kinship and domestication are discussed theoretically relating to how altruistic behaviors form with the support of several real-life experiments. Then, some insufficiencies involved in those experiments are discussed to make the arguments more solid.
Although altruism appears to be an abnormal behavior because it violates the common sense of human and animal behaviors, “the nature of man” shows its possibility in the natural world. Before explaining the definition of altruism, it is necessary to discuss egoism in order to better understand the core idea of altruism. Egoism defines everyone as following their own self-interest to satisfy their needs. It is a common practice and exists at all times. In economics, egoism is the basis of discipline. In “Self‐interest and the Theory of Action”, Jack Barbalet states that “every agent is actuated only by self-interest” (2012, 417).
Following one’s self-interest is the necessary condition for the whole society to operate logically, further Barbalet states, “according to economic thought market action is rational when it maximizes self-interest on the basis of internally consistent preferences” (Barbalet 2012, 417). From an economics perspective, every humans’ behavior is motivated by their internal logic and explained by their consistent choices. The goal of each egoistic behavior is to maximize one’s individual desires and demands. Egoism not only exists commonly in human society, but it also exists prominently in other species within the natural world. By law of the jungle, the concept maintains this belief by showing that each animal’s behavior determines its living and they must react to their surroundings in the way which benefits them most.
Altruism, however, stands in direct contrast to the concept of egoism. In order to fully understand altruism, deconstructing egoism is necessary. By the basis of self-interest, every behavior seems to be ruled and explained by egoism; however, it is not the sole motivation for every behavior. In some conditions “the nature of man” shows that altruistic behavior prevails over egoistic behavior. Behaviors are highly variable and sometimes contradictory. In “Animal Behavior and Human Altruism”, one of the chapters of “The Nature of Politics”, Roger D. Masters agrees that the “nature of man” is controversial, writing: “humans—like other animals—are highly variable and likely show contradictory traits” (1989, 1). From the Master’s opinion, some human behavior cannot be solely explained by egoism, instead, humans sometimes deviate from their self-interests. Their behaviors are not rational, which means they cannot be explained by the logic of self-interest.
However, those behaviors can be explained by altruism. Masters also shows that some behaviors are not restrained by the individual benefits, but instead, those behaviors pursue the collective benefits. Masters writes, “not only is altruism or sharing virtuous, but such virtue is the full development of human nature, not merely a conventional restraint on individual pleasure or gain” (Masters 1989, 5). The virtue of pursuing collective gain or benefit is also part of the “nature of man.” In some circumstances, collective benefit exceeds the individual benefit, and it becomes the goal of societal behavior.
Hence, altruism and egoism seem to be distinctly opposite characteristics when considered together. While these behaviors may seem contradictory, they more clearly show complementary behavioral patterns. Each individual can obtain two traits at the same time. Sometimes one can be egoistic to maximize their self-interests. In other cases, an individual’s disposition deviates from this normal egoistic behavior and forms seemingly abnormal altruistic behaviors, which are pursued for collective benefits. Egoism is not the whole part of human nature, but altruism is also part of the “nature of man”.
The altruistic part of the “nature of man” leads individuals to pursue the collective benefits instead of their self-interest. When we consider the causes of this altruistic motivation, within one species, it is reasonable for us to associate with the idea of family when thinking over the deep reasons behind why an individual chooses to give up their interest but to care more about collective benefits. Masters obtains the same belief that “cooperation is nature, first within the family or extended kin group, and later by extension in the city” (Masters 1989, 5).
In the same kin group or family pack, individuals have more close relationships with each other because of sharing the bloodline. This close relationship gives a sense of responsibility and protection within the family, so one’s interest can be extended to a broader collective interest. For example, one’s survival problem is actually the whole family’s survival problem because if one family member dies from the external danger, the whole family group is exposed in front of the serious situation. Defending cooperatively towards outside danger is the only way to deal with the problem, then protecting other family members is actually protecting themselves. It shows that pursuing self-interest and pursuing collective benefits exist at the same time. Inside the kin group or family, it could easily develop the tendency to behave altruistically to other family members. It is natural to work cooperatively with other family members to achieve a collective goal.
To support the theoretical idea that kinship is one of the reasons that cause altruistic behaviors to each other, Oliver Curry et al. tested the extent of altruism involving kinship relationships versus friendships in “Altruism in Social Networks: Evidence for a ‘kinship Premium’.” Specifically, the experiment analyzes two theories. Regarding kin altruism. And reciprocal altruism. Oliver Curry et al. presents the definition of the kin altruism such that “evolution will favor ‘adaptations for altruism’ if they provide benefits in proportion to the probability that the recipient shares the same ‘genes for’ those adaptations” (Curry et al. 2013, 284).
Based on the aforementioned, the theorem shows that genes have a determinant impact on altruistic behaviors. For example, mothers protect their babies from a young age without any charges. It is reasonable to understand mothers’ behaviors because their babies are “separated” from their bodies, sharing the same genes and blood. Further, Curry et al. indicates the importance of reciprocal altruism. Curry et al. defines this as “evolution will favor ‘adaptations for altruism’ if they lead to the formation of mutually-beneficial relationships, in which the costs of being altruistic are outweighed by benefits received in return” (Curry et al. 2013, 284). This shows there exists an environment where community members benefit from one another by helping others. The future benefits that could be gained from community members exceed the cost of altruistic behaviors in the present. This mutual benefit environment is the motivation of reciprocal altruistic behaviors.
In comparison to kinship relationships, LSE researchers noted that friendships do not have as strong a social bond as kinship. In the experiment, “A total of 86 LSE undergraduates, and 25 visitors to the Psychological Research on the Net site completed the survey” about how different relationships, including kinship and friendly, affect their willingness to behave altruistically to their family members and friends (Curry et al. 2013, 286). Based on the questionnaires, the experiment shows that kinship relationship forms greater altruism than friendship relationship and greater “for more central layers of the network” (Curry et al. 2013, 283).
It is because the kinship relationship is the closest social relationship among all relationships, which is bonded by the same genes. From the evolutionary psychology perspective, Curry et al. suggests that “such behavior is primarily the product of adaptations for king- and reciprocal altruism, dependent on the degree of genetic relatedness and exchange of benefits, respectively” (Curry et al. 2013, 283). Kinship relationship not only obtains kin altruism, but they also exhibit reciprocal altruism to each other. This behavior forms a sustainable mutually beneficial system, which leads to altruistic behaviors inside the same kin group.
However, friendship only contains reciprocal altruism. For instance, friendship may not come close enough to a sister/brother relationship. It is because sisters/brothers not only behave altruistically to each other due to the same kin, but they also help each other throughout their growth experience. In addition, Curry et al. also shows that “participants were more altruistic towards kin than would be expected if altruism was dependent on emotional closeness alone” (Curry et al. 2013, 283). It illustrates that kinship obtains the determinant position that leads to altruism compared to other potential causes. This “kinship premium” promotes a high level of altruistic behaviors among family members, which means kinship provides internal motivation for each individual to behave altruistically to pursue collective benefit instead of self-benefit.
More interestingly, altruistic behaviors do not just happen to species of the same kin, but also among cross-species. In some special cases, animals even behave altruistically to humans, specifically in the article “Altruism in wolves explains the coevolution of dogs and humans”, Jouventin et al. look at the relationship between one human family and the wolf. Jouventin et al. utilize a unique behavioral observation of a wolf, named Kamala, who was raised by a human family (2016, 5).
Since Kamala was raised from a young age, she believed the human family was her original family. She viewed the human family as his family members, then she obtained both kin altruism and reciprocal altruism to humans just like the altruism existing within one species. In the observation, Kamala behaves altruistically to the human family members. The behaviors included “restraining pack member that is trying to descend through a window”, “”rescuing” pack member from the bath”, and “entering river, “rescuing” pack member from the water” (Jouventin et al. 2016, 5-7).
Those behaviors were potentially dangerous, but Kamala still behave altruistically to protect family members. More than that, the observation also illustrated that Kamala “was also developed in association with other wolves” (Jouventin et al. 2016, 6). It shows Kamala also obtained friendship relationship with other wolves.
However, “When faced with both food and social reinforcement, young wolf accepts humans as pack members due to their social evolutionary history” (Jouventin et al. 2016, 6). The result illustrates Kamala developed a much closer relationship with human family members than other wolves, and she was more willing to behave altruistically to humans. It also supported the experiment investigated by the London School of Economics above, which the extent of altruism caused by kinship exceeds friendships. Kamala seemed like other wolves as her friends, but she had a closer kinship relationship with the human family because she believed the human family members shared closer kin with her through the experience at a young age.
There is a question involved in this observation, which is how physical appearances affect Kamala’s recognition of relationships. How did Kamala believe the human family members obtain a closer kinship relationship than other wolves although Kamala could tell the difference of physical appearances and behaviors between humans and wolves? The answer is that “when a cub is reared in a human family instead a wolf pack, it continues defending “relatives,” accepting human leadership and cooperating with family members as though it was kin-related, even though the cooperation is ‘misplaced’ onto another species” (Jouventin et al. 2016, 7).
In Kamala’s young age, she did not recognize other wolves as core social interactants, but instead, she viewed the human family members as her core social interactants. Since the human family gave Kamala benefits from a young age, she chose to believe the human family members were her parents and she would give back the benefits in the future. That was why the close kinship relationship was imprinted in her nature. This special observation shows that the kinship relationship is not restricted to the same species, but more importantly, this relationship is highly connected to the experience in the cub’s young age. The special experience could shift the cognition and belief in the cub’s nature, form kinship relationships with her family members that are not as the same species as her, then develop kin and reciprocal altruism with humans.
However, there remains some insufficiency in this observation and analysis: Kamala and the human family case do not discuss how the training enforces the altruistic behaviors of the wolf. In “Altruism in Wolves Explains the Coevolution of Dogs and Wolves: A Response to Jouventin, Christen, and Dobson”, the scholar Sylvain Fiset poses a question that “could it be possible that Kamala’s unique exposure to humans has favored, over the years, gradual learning of her altruistic behavior via positive reinforcement by her ‘human conspecifics’?” (Fiset 2016, 12). It is possible that the specific altruistic behaviors are affected by Kamala’s human family members. Those altruistic behaviors are acted under some special circumstances. In other words, this reinforcement of altruistic behaviors could seem like training from her human family members to the wolf. The question from Sylvain Fiset raises another cause of animals’ altruistic behavior to humans which is training from humans.
Training is an effective way for a human or animal being to behave in a certain way with a specific instruction or under some specific circumstance. More importantly, it is especially useful to form certain emotions or behaviors. In “Compassion Training Alters Altruism and Neural Responses to Suffering”, an experiment about how compassion training alters altruism supports this argument. In the article, Weng et al. state that “in healthy adults, we found that compassion training increased altruistic redistribution of funds to a victim encountered outside of the training context” (Weng et al. 2013, 1171).
It shows that altruistic behaviors could be enforced through the process of training. In addition, some physical parts of the trainee are also affected by the training, and that triggers the corresponding altruistic behaviors. The experiment shows that “increased altruistic behavior after compassion training was associated with altered activation in brain regions implicated in social cognition and emotion regulation” (Weng et al. 2013, 1171). The result from the experiment reinforces that training is very effective in forming certain altruistic behaviors. More importantly, the training can alter the neural system and brain of trainees and in turn strengthen greater altruistic behaviors.
The influence of training is not only limited to humans, but it is also prominent to animals. Through training, animals could understand certain humans’ instructions and form the following conditioned reflex. In “When Do Dogs Help Humans?”, Juliane Bräuer et al. describes a study that shows trained dogs could help humans to open doors, which can be seemed as satisfying humans’ benefits, without seeking for dogs’ self-interest. It illustrates that the training is also effective to form animals’ altruistic behaviors to humans. The experiment tests how effective training affects dogs behaving altruistically toward humans, and how the identity of the experimenter affects dogs’ altruistic behaviors. Two groups of dogs are utilized in this experiment: one group of dogs are trained by the owner and experimented by the same owner, another group of dogs are trained by the owner and experimented by a different stranger (Bräuer 2013, 146).
The training part is for dogs to understand humans’ instructions and humans’ purpose, which is helping humans to open the door by touching the buttons. In addition, to make sure dogs’ behaviors are altruistic instead of following their self-interest, the experiment also set two control groups, one in the room with food while another is not (Bräuer 2013, 146). The result turns out that two groups of dogs behave with the same level towards the room with and without food, which “indicates that dogs indeed helped without getting a reward and not because they were trained to do so” (Bräuer 2013, 147). It shows that training is very effective for dogs to behave altruistically to humans with humans’ instruction.
More importantly, “dogs did not differentiate between the owner and the stranger is the experimenter. In contrast to other studies, dogs did not help the owner more than a stranger” (Bräuer 2013, 147). It shows dogs also show no difference to the identity of the experimenter. Although dogs have a closer relationship with the owner, the motivation for dogs to behave altruistically keeps to the same extent. From this experiment, indeed altruism from animals to humans could be trained and enforced by certain instructions from humans, and the relationship between dogs and experimenters does not affect the extent of altruistic behaviors.
It is interesting to see the experiment of Kamala, the raised wolf, and the experiment of the dogs form some contradictions; however, they are actually not opposite to each other towards the motivation of altruistic behaviors, but they could both be the causes that motivate altruistic behaviors from animals to humans. In the experiment of Kamala, the kinship keeps the dominant position in forming the wolf’s altruistic behaviors, but there is no doubt that not-designed training also helps to form her altruistic behaviors to some extent.
In the dogs’ experiment, some insufficiency also exists between the relationship between dogs and their owners. It is impossible to tell how close the relationship is, and it is ambiguous to know how the historical growing experience of dogs affects the relationship. It remains a high possibility that dogs and the owner just form some friendship relationship instead of a close kinship relationship. The experiments and theoretical theories show that both kinship and training could be the causes that motivate altruistic behaviors from animals to humans.
In conclusion, altruistic behaviors are reasonable to exist in the natural world, which obtains the same importance as the egoistic behaviors that are assumed as the foundation of any being’s behaviors in the beginning. More importantly, altruism does not only exist inside one species, but it is also possible to exist cross-species. Kinship and training are two causes that motivate animals to behave altruistically to humans. The influence of those two causes is not contradicted with each other but complementary to each other. Most of the evidence in literature about this topic only focuses on altruism among the same species, but this essay discusses two causes that fill the gap of the altruism between humans and animals. It complicates the relationship between humans and animals to another level.
Written by Gechen Shen
How Do Animals Express Their Love To Humans?
Works Cited
Barbalet, Jack. 2012. “Self‐interest and the Theory of Action.” British Journal of Sociology 63, 3
Bräuer, Juliane, Katja Schönefeld, and Josep Call. 2013. “When Do Dogs Help Humans?” Applied Animal Behavior Science 148 (1-2): 138–49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2013.07.009.
Curry, Oliver, Sam G. B. Roberts, and Robin I. M. Dunbar. 2013. “Altruism in Social Networks: Evidence for a ‘kinship Premium’.” British Journal of Psychology 104, 2: 283-95.
Fiset, Sylvain. 2016.”Altruism in Wolves Explains the Coevolution of Dogs and Wolves: A Response to Jouventin, Christen, and Dobson.” Ideas in Ecology and Evolution 9. https://doi.org/10.4033/iee.2016.9.3.c.
Jouventin, Pierre, Yves Christen, and Stephen Dobson. 2016. “Altruism in Wolves Explains the Coevolution of Dogs and Wolves.” Ideas in Ecology and Evolution 9. https://doi.org/10.4033/iee.2016.9.2.n.
MASTERS, Roger D. 1989. “Animal Behavior and Human Altruism.” In The Nature of Politics. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Weng, Helen Y, Andrew S Fox, Alexander J Shackman, Diane E Stodola, Jessica Z. K Caldwell, Matthew C Olson, Gregory M Rogers, and Richard J Davidson. 2013. “Compassion Training Alters Altruism and Neural Responses to Suffering.” Psychological Science 24, 7: 1171-180.
