Moody apes: Both in captivity and in the wild, apes show a range of emotions.
Credit: Thomas Lersch
CHICAGO: Apes demonstrate a full range of emotions, including grief and empathy, scientists have discovered.
These emotions have been observed in several species of great apes, both in captivity and in the wild, said Barbara King, an anthropologist at the College of William and Mary in the U.S. city of Williamsburg, Virginia.
In a presentation at this year's annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, she showed a video of a family of captive gorillas, in which a large silverback male got into a fight with a younger male.
Empathic response
The youth refused to back down, though the fear on his face was obvious. Other gorillas showed empathy by trying to intervene on the younger male's behalf.
The emotions of primates have previously been documented in studies that have looked at incidences of grooming, infant gestures, and aggression in males, said King, but this study is different in that it looks at the spontaneous expression of emotions in day-to-day social interactions.
There is more to learn by looking at the gorillas' emotions in the context of their social encounters, she added.
Paul Ekman is a retired psychology professor from the University of California in San Francisco, and author of an introduction to a 2009 commemorative version of Charles Darwin's book, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.
Universal emotions
Like Darwin, he believes that facial expressions are not based in culture, but are biological in origin. "Darwin argued that emotions are discreet and they're universal," said Ekman.
King warns, though, that we have to be careful not to misinterpret animal emotions. A grin in a chimp could be a show of fear, she said, though we may interpret it as joy. What has been discovered about the emotions of apes teaches us something about ourselves. "We wouldn't be human in the ways we are human if the apes hadn't been deeply emotional creatures," King said.
The emotions of primates, she added, give us new insight into the evolution of our own emotions and the way they relate to human institutions, even religion. "Religion is emotional at its root," said King, adding that an understanding of the emotions of primates is necessary to understanding human culture, religion, and language.
