In a simple experiment, researchers at the University of Chicago sought to find out whether a rat would release a fellow rat from an unpleasantly restrictive cage if it could. The answer was yes.
The free rat, occasionally hearing distress calls from its compatriot, learned to open the cage and did so with greater efficiency over time. It would release the other animal even if there wasn’t the payoff of a reunion with it. Astonishingly, if given access to a small hoard of chocolate chips, the free rat would usually save at least one treat for the captive — which is a lot to expect of a rat.
The researchers came to the unavoidable conclusion that what they were seeing was empathy — and apparently selfless behavior driven by that mental state.
“A New Model of Empathy: The Rat” by David Brown, Washington Post
via: lycanpedia
The Grand Ol’ Teaparty could learn a lesson from rats:
- House Republicans Again Delay Payroll Tax Cut Vote, May Resort To Procedural Gimmicks – Think Progress
- Have you heard about the sweet deal Romney got from Bain Capital (and all the people he helped lay off in the process)? Think Progress
- Jeb Bush wrote a WSJ op-ed today extolling the magic of capitalism over the “stagnant” welfare state. What Jeb Bush failed to do, however, was point out how he’s a big beneficiary of corporate welfare — Mother Jones
- “Our nation needs to stop doing for people what they can and should do for themselves. Self reliance means, if anyone will not work, neither should he eat.” — Michele Bachmann
- “… I believe that Iraq should pay the families that lost a loved one several million dollars per life, I think at minimum.” — Michele Bachmann
- “Don’t try to stop the foreclosure process. Let it run its course and hit the bottom…” – Mitt Romney
- “I should tell my story. I’m also unemployed.” Mitt Romney chuckled.
- “Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and nobody around them who works. So they literally have no habit of showing up on Monday. They have no habit of staying all day. They have no habit of ‘I do this and you give me cash,’ unless it’s illegal.” — Newt Gingrich
- “But why should we hear about body bags and deaths, and how many, what day it’s gonna happen, and how many this or that or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it’s not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that, and watch him (George H. W. Bush) suffer?”– Barbara Bush addressing how much news she watches, two days before Iraq invasion, 03/18/03
