Emotion and Empathy in Great Apes

Abstract

Abstract Humans and other great apes have evolved rich social and emotional capacities that enable them to navigate their complex social worlds. These include sophisticated ways to produce, perceive, and express affective states, as well as to respond effectively to the states of others. A distinctive feature of human emotional functioning is empathy, the capacity to share and understand others’ states. Far from being uniquely human, empathy has a deep evolutionary history and may be found across diverse animal species in both mammals and birds. This chapter examines some of the continuities between the emotional processes, including empathy of humans and our closest ape relatives. Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (P. paniscus) are our closest cousins and show numerous overlaps in their socio-affective and cognitive capacities, social structures, and life histories. Studying their emotional and empathic capacities reveals many overlaps, highlighting a deep evolutionary basis of hominid emotionality.