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A Student Paper from Psychology 392: Writing in Psychology

Nancy Lattinville’s essay, “Signs of Empathy Observed in Animals,” was written in response to the following assignment from Psych 392: Writing in Psychology in the Fall 2006.  The course was taught by Amanda Dettmer under the supervision of Carolyn Cave.

Paper 3: Writing an Effective Argument

Writing a persuasive argument is critical in academic and professional writing. You may have to recommend treatment for a patient, convince a funding agency to give money to your research, or propose a new psychological theory you have developed. This assignment will focus on writing an effective argument. You will choose to defend or refute (i.e., contradict) a controversial statement, and support your claim with reasons and concrete evidence. You will also acknowledge the other side. You should write for an academic audience, keeping the tone professional and objective (i.e., in the 3rd person).

TOPIC GOALS: The topic goal of this assignment is to give you detailed exposure to a controversial area within evolutionary psychology.

WRITING GOALS: Clarity! Brevity! Accuracy!

In each assignment, you should always strive for these writing components. For this assignment, focus on establishing a persuasive, effective argument. To do so, you should incorporate the following parts into your paper:

  1. Claim: What stance do you take on the issue? What side are you arguing? Because a claim is debatable, it must always be based on:

  1. Reasons: Why do you adopt one side of the argument? What are the logical bases for your claim? Because your reasons are debatable, they must always be based on:

  1. Evidence: How do you know? What are the concrete, objective facts that lend support to the reasons for your claim? Arguments are not merely based on strong opinions or emotions. BE SURE TO CITE YOUR REFERENCES according to APA format.

  1. Acknowledgement: Do you recognize alternate claims that counter yours? Do you provide responses that answer these counter-claims and assess the weight of evidence for them?

ASSIGNMENT:

Select one of the following statements and either defend or refute it, writing a persuasive, effective argument for your claim as outlined above and discussed in class. (Note: You may choose your own controversial topic to argue, but it must be approved by me by October 26).

1. Homosexual behavior has evolutionary advantages. (Keywords: homosexual; adaptation; advantage; non-human)

2. Men and women evolved different types of romantic jealousy. (Keywords: jealousy; evolve; romance; infidelity)

3. Empathy is a uniquely human trait. (Keywords: empathy; emotion; feelings; human; non-human; evolution)

After selecting the statement you want to defend or refute, decide on your claim (e.g., you agree that homosexual behavior has evolutionary advantages). Next, think of logical reasons for your claim. Why might this be so? Begin initial research into the topic, starting with the keywords I’ve provided (don’t limit yourself to just these!). Based on your research, decide which pieces of empirical evidence you will use to support the reasons for your claim. Be sure to acknowledge arguments against your claim, and develop appropriate responses that show your analysis of the evidence for the counter-claims. Remember that an effective argument is one that convinces your audience to agree with your claim based on logical reasons supported by concrete evidence.

WHAT TO HAND IN:

Partial draft (5 copies due 11/2/06): Your partial draft should include the following:

1. A full draft of your introductory paragraph, which indicates that you understand the crux of the issue, why it is important, and how it can be attacked or developed (be sure to state your claim!).

2. The rest of your paper in outline form, which will include your reasons, evidence, and acknowledgements. The argument charts handed out in class may be useful.

3. An annotated bibliography, which will include APA-style citations of your references and which pieces of evidence you will extract from each reference to support your argument.

Complete 1st draft (5 copies due 11/9/06): Your complete first draft should NOT be an outline, but should be a fully-written argument containing all the parts outlined above. It should be persuasive and effective, and between 5-7 pages in length (without references), double-spaced.

Complete 2nd draft (1 copy due 11/14/06): Your one-on-one peer review draft should be close to the final draft, with few errors, and between 5-7 pages in length (without references), double-spaced.

Final draft with cover letter (due 11/21/06): Your final draft should be error-free and should provide a strong, convincing argument. It should be between 5-7 pages in length (without references), double-spaced. Your paper MUST include your references in APA format, and citations of the references in the text. Your cover letter should be addressed to your instructor and should include a synopsis of your peer comments and how you responded to them; a description of at least two substantive changes you made in your paper; or a defense of your paper if you think it is perfect the way it is. It should be 1 page in length.

NOTE: You must use at least FIVE references that are NOT websites (i.e., research or review articles, book chapters, professional magazines, newspapers, etc.). You may obtain these sources from web-based databases, etc. You may also use websites, but be sure they are reliable sources and are not your only means of evidence.

EVALUATION:

Your paper will be evaluated based on these criteria:

1. The presence of an explicit claim and reasons: I must know from the beginning what you are arguing, and why. Additionally, your reasons should be clear and logical.

2. Sufficient evidence to convince me that your reasons are sound. There should be ample support for your claim/reasons that is concrete and empirical.

3. Your acknowledgement of the other side of the argument, and responses to these claims that support your claim.

4. Spelling, grammar, and punctuation: the best way to make your argument most effective is not to distract the reader with these types of problems. Your argument will flow more smoothly without these speed bumps.

 

Signs of Empathy Observed in Animals

By Nancy Lattinville

            Everyone at some point in their lives has been helped by someone else.  A man gave a woman a dime when the soda machine ate hers, or a woman cried along with a friend at a low point in her life.  These people showed empathy with another’s troubles, and in return, took steps to alleviate their distress.  As far back as Darwin, scientists classified the ability to express empathy as a human trait.  There has been debate on whether animals possessed this level of emotional response.  Research indicated that many different types of animals expressed empathy within their communities.  On an evolutionary scale, these results point toward similarities between the way animals and humans evolved and that both species are even more closely linked to each other than originally thought.  The time has come to embrace the concept that animals also possess the amazing trait known as empathy.
            To fully understand if animals possess empathy it must first be defined.  There has been much confusion in the scientific arena about the differences between empathy and sympathy.  In the past, researchers had intermixed one with the other which caused an assumption that they meant the same thing.  Wispe (1986) asserted that ‘“The object of empathy is to ‘understand’ the other person.  The object of sympathy is the other person’s ‘well being’” (p. 318).  For example, if someone was in a flood, we feel sorry for that person and we sympathize with their situation.  Empathy occurs when we become emotionally involved and proactively try to alleviate the other person’s suffering because we feel their pain as if it were our own.
            Do animals have the capacity to empathize?  To find the answer to this question, researchers have studied behavior in several species to see if they showed any signs of empathy.  They discovered so many examples of empathy in animals, that the results can not be ignored.  For example, the findings reported in the magazine Greater Good by de Waal (2005-06), concluded that animals, especially monkeys, showed signs of empathy because they understood the suffering and hardships of the other monkeys.  Chimps showed empathy when they comforted another chimp after a fight. Rhesus monkeys felt such distress at the idea that they might injure one of their own to get food that they went so far as to starve themselves for 12 days because they refused to hurt another monkey.
            In another study done with elephants, Douglas-Hamilton, Bhalla, Wittemyer, & Vollrath, (2006) observed that elephants took great care in nursing the sick and paying respect to the dead.  The animals were empathizing with the suffering of the other members of their kin.  This was noted when the elephants assisted their matriarch when she fell down.  They helped her back on her feet and pushed and pulled her so she would stay upright.  They stayed with her to see if she would be alright but she fell down again.  This distressed the elephants and they vocalized their concern while they tried to help the elephant get up again.  When the matriarch died, the elephants of her family unit stayed close by.  Over seven days, other elephant families came and touched the carcass of the dead elephant.  Researchers were unsure if it was a way to pay respect to the dead or just a show of empathy for their loss because elephants from different groups usually will not interact with one another.
            Darwin’s theory on animal behavior had no place for empathy.  Darwin suggested that survival of the fittest was the way animals dealt with problems that they faced.  He used this theory to explain that animals had a self-preserving attitude when it came to interactions among their own kind.  If Darwin’s theory was correct, the elephants would have abandoned the sick elephant instead of trying to help.  In the case of the monkeys, they would not have cared that one was getting shocked as long as they got their food.  The research results contradicted Darwin’s theory on survival: empathy had to play a major role in the animal kingdom.
            Empathy appears to have had an evolutionary component to it.  In Hoffman’s (1981) paper, he quoted research performed by Trivers that “natural selection had to favor altruism, even between nonrelated individuals, because of its long-term benefit to the organism performing it” (p. 123).  This meant that an individual would sacrifice to save someone else, even if it was not family, but in return, would expect that person to reciprocate the behavior.  Hoffman speculated that because of the type of social groups that people lived in, selflessness would have been a benefit to the community because it promoted peaceful group living.  A gene that supported a self-sacrificing nature would have benefited our ancestors.  This tendency to be selfless would have insured the survival of the community at the loss of only a few.  Since this proved to be beneficial for our species, evolution picked this gene to be passed on to the next generation.
            This protective and self sacrificing behavior has also evolved in animals.  In bonobos, de Waal (2005-06) noted that when a bird was hurt and the ape found it, it understood that it could not fly and protected it until it could fly on its own.  This parallels the altruism that Hoffman spoke about that natural selection would favor.  The ape, in a primitive way, used his knowledge of empathy gained from his family unit and tried to stretch that concept to include other animals. He did not fully understand that the bird probably could not reciprocate the behavior.  This selfless behavior supports that a gene for empathy would benefit animals. 
            de Waal (2005-06) also talked about how the chimps showed empathy when they interacted with their young.  Mothers would come to the aid of their young when they cried out for help, and these signs of empathy showed to the young chimps helped them to build strong social bonds in their primate family.  Social bonds are essential for promoting empathy in communities because they help to maintain peaceful living and cooperation between family members.  Lionesses also show empathy when they band together to hunt for food.  Empathy and cooperation have to work together to promote the survival of the pride (de Waal 2005-06).  All this evidence supports the idea that evolution has picked this gene to pass on to animals as part of the natural selection process.
            Some researchers suggested that empathy could be a learned trait and not linked to genes.  A study done by Worthington and Scherer (2004) suggested that “forgiveness is an emotional-focused coping strategy” (p. 385).  If empathy was just a learned process, then anyone could learn empathy including animals.
            If there was no genetic basis for empathy and it was merely a learned process, how do we explain that people with low empathy are considered social misfits?  People with autism might want to help others, but lack the cognitive empathy necessary to engage in this behavior.  Smith (2006) defined empathy into two forms: cognitive, which relates to the ability to take another person’s perception and emotional, which relates to the way we share our emotions with others.  Smith (2006) argued in his paper that people with autism used avoidance to stop themselves from becoming attached to other people because they could not handle how those empathic emotions would make them feel.  They have a hard time adapting to changes in social settings and they withdraw and act indifferent to other people.  Animals also depend on their ability to maintain a strong social environment.  The great apes depend on each other not just for protection but social and emotional support.  Elephants also show strong community bonds which are vital for a well functioning society (Douglas-Hamilton et al., 2006).  Empathy could have a learned component to it, but it would be more likely that animals were predisposed to cognitive empathy which would be genetic in nature.
            If animals were genetically predisposed to emotional empathy, that does not mean they do not express it in different ways.  Animals pick up emotions from their families through observations and feelings.  The nonverbal expression of empathy would be imperative for survival in the wild.  Nakayama (2004) preformed research to see if empathy could be transmitted between animals by actions such as scratching when upset because a stranger was near.  She concluded that whenever a stranger got too close, the monkey closest to the danger would scratch and other monkeys observing this behavior would then give vocal calls and scratch themselves too.  This behavior then alerted the rest of the group that danger was near and they became more attentive for any additional signs of danger.
            The monkeys appeared not just to be mimicking a behavior, but they were actually transmitting the distress of one monkey, and by repetition of the scratching, conveyed distress to others in the family unit.  The prolonged scratching only occurred when a stranger was close by noted Nakayama (2004), so it is unlikely that this could be attributed to something else.  This behavior in animals could be an instinctive survival technique used as a form of nonverbal communication and a primitive form of empathy between close family members.
            Human babies will cry in a nursery if another baby has started to cry.  Some researchers concluded that the babies were mimicking what they heard and not really empathizing.  Decety and Jackson’s (2006) research concluded that this behavior was a result of mimicry and that others could reproduce the desired response just by watching the behavior or picking up on the emotions of someone else and coping it.  Since this form of transference should not be considered empathy, some scientists suggest that animals only mimic behavior and empathy does not come in play.
            In a mimic response you would not see forms of self denial, or a willingness to sacrifice for others.  The rhesus monkeys showed self denial when they starved themselves for 12 days because they refused to injure one of their own for food (de Waal 2005-06).  That was not mimicking but empathy, and a form of empathy so strong that it overrode their basic need for food and promoted a higher need; one of protection.  The elephants showed self denial when they stayed with the sick matriarch to tried to help her regain her strength.  They showed a willingness to deny basic animal instincts to help an injured family member (Douglas-Hamilton et al., 2006).  Mimic responses can not explain these actions, but a selfless response to the emotional needs of others or empathy can.
            Allot (1992) asserted that empathy “serves as a mode of communication between members of a family, between members of a group or even between hostile individuals or groups” (p. 3). The research conducted on empathy so far has mirrored Allot’s claim.  For critics who still believe that animals do not show empathy, the evidence discovered makes it increasingly difficult to argue their case.  Empathy’s a complex issue, and now it is not just a question of IF animals have empathy, but in what forms do animals incorporate empathy into their lives and how do they parallel human expressions of empathy. 

Nancy R. Lattinville is currently a junior psychology major at UMass Amherst.  Originally from Easthampton, this working Mom hopes to pursue a professional career in student counseling when she graduates.

Updated September 3, 2008

 

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