Frans de Waal (Director of the Living Links Center, part of the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, EMORY University, Atlanta, USA)
Evolutionary theory postulates that altruistic behavior evolved for the return-benefits it bears the performer. For return-benefits to play a motivational role, however, they need to be experienced by the organism. Motivational analyses should restrict themselves, therefore, to the altruistic impulse and its knowable consequences. Empathy is an ideal candidate mechanism to underlie so-called “directed altruism,” i.e. altruism in response to another’s pain, need, or distress. The possibility that animals have empathy and sympathy has received little systematic attention, however, due to an excessive fear of anthropomorphism and a taboo on animal emotions. Actual animal behavior, however, would lead one to agree with Charles Darwin that "Many animals certainly sympathize with each other's distress or danger." In my own work with monkeys and apes, I have found many cases of one individual coming to another's rescue in a fight, putting an arm around a previous victim of attack, or other emotional responses to the distress of others.
Empathy has many levels, from basic perception-action mechanisms (probably related to mirror neurons) to ever greater cognitive elaborations that include perspective-taking. The basic forms probably exist in all mammals as they serve important survival functions for animals with vulnerable young. The higher forms of empathy require a sharp self-other distinction found only in humans over the age of two, and a few other large-brained species: apes, dolphins, and elephants. Perception of the emotional state of another automatically activates shared representations causing a matching emotional state in the observer. With increasing cognition, state-matching evolved into more complex forms, including concern for the other and perspective-taking. Empathy-induced altruism derives its strength from the emotional stake it offers the self in the other’s welfare. The dynamics of the empathy mechanism agree with predictions from kin selection and reciprocal altruism theory.
Reading: de Waal, F. B. M. (2008). Putting the altruism back into altruism: The evolution of empathy. Annual Review of Psychology 59: 279-300.
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