| Title |
Rats demonstrate helping behavior toward a soaked conspecific
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
Animal Cognition, May 2015
|
| DOI | 10.1007/s10071-015-0872-2 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Nobuya Sato, Ling Tan, Kazushi Tate, Maya Okada |
| Abstract |
Helping behavior is a prosocial behavior whereby an individual helps another irrespective of disadvantages to him or herself. In the present study, we examined whether rats would help distressed, conspecific rats that had been soaked with water. In Experiment 1, rats quickly learned to liberate a soaked cagemate from the water area by opening the door to allow the trapped rat into a safe area. Additional tests showed that the presentation of a distressed cagemate was necessary to induce rapid door-opening behavior. In addition, it was shown that rats dislike soaking and that rats that had previously experienced a soaking were quicker to learn how to help a cagemate than those that had never been soaked. In Experiment 2, the results indicated that rats did not open the door to a cagemate that was not distressed. In Experiment 3, we tested behavior when rats were forced to choose between opening the door to help a distressed cagemate and opening a different door to obtain a food reward. Irrespective of how they learned to open the door, in most test trials, rats chose to help the cagemate before obtaining a food reward, suggesting that the relative value of helping others is greater than the value of a food reward. These results suggest that rats can behave prosocially and that helper rats may be motivated by empathy-like feelings toward their distressed cagemate. |
X Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 164 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 23 | 14% |
| Japan | 18 | 11% |
| United Kingdom | 9 | 5% |
| Germany | 4 | 2% |
| Spain | 3 | 2% |
| France | 2 | 1% |
| Russia | 2 | 1% |
| Australia | 2 | 1% |
| Ireland | 1 | <1% |
| Other | 15 | 9% |
| Unknown | 85 | 52% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 146 | 89% |
| Scientists | 11 | 7% |
| Science communicators (journalists, bloggers, editors) | 6 | 4% |
| Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals) | 1 | <1% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 303 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Germany | 2 | <1% |
| United States | 2 | <1% |
| Portugal | 1 | <1% |
| France | 1 | <1% |
| Italy | 1 | <1% |
| Brazil | 1 | <1% |
| Turkey | 1 | <1% |
| Singapore | 1 | <1% |
| United Kingdom | 1 | <1% |
| Other | 2 | <1% |
| Unknown | 290 | 96% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 60 | 20% |
| Student > Bachelor | 50 | 17% |
| Researcher | 45 | 15% |
| Student > Master | 44 | 15% |
| Student > Doctoral Student | 19 | 6% |
| Other | 35 | 12% |
| Unknown | 50 | 17% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Psychology | 62 | 20% |
| Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 58 | 19% |
| Neuroscience | 57 | 19% |
| Medicine and Dentistry | 18 | 6% |
| Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology | 8 | 3% |
| Other | 33 | 11% |
| Unknown | 67 | 22% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 450. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 17 February 2024.
All research outputs
#62,657
of 25,809,966 outputs
Outputs from Animal Cognition
#21
of 1,589 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#608
of 281,062 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Animal Cognition
#1
of 20 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,809,966 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 99th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,589 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 34.5. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its peers.
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