Evolutionary Empathy

Evolutionarily speaking, the emergence of empathy enhanced the survival of our species.  Until fairly recently, it was thought that humans were the only species to exhibit any sort of empathetic behaviors.  It is becoming more and more apparent that this is not the case.  More advanced primate species and our closest relatives, the chimpanzees have begun to show signs of a movement toward the evolution of empathetic behaviors as well.  The evolutionary benefits in terms of survival and fitness

Human empathy is quite unique as applied to our unique evolutionary paths, Decety explains in his paper, as we are the only species to have evolved such a complex social structure, with a focus on communication and a highly adapted sense of empathy for those who are very distant (an example being those affected by natural disasters in distant lands that we may have not even ever visited).  Increased empathy means better parenting, higher individual fitness, and more successful life interaction. Well-developed empathy stems from an increased participation in the rearing of young; a mother-offspring bond that is well-formed lends to increased fitness in the offspring, especially in the social relationships that are so important to primate life.  Knowing, learning, and understanding the complex social interactions between inferior and superior members of the species is extremely important to survival, so obviously a strong understanding of such will lend to increased survival abilities.

Decety focuses on the importance of empathy in our day to day lives.  However, a fairly recent study shows evidence that empathy might be seen in chimpanzee as well, and it is certainly not the only study to state such.  This is particularly of interest, as two of the most important adaptations that helped us along the evolutionary path to anatomically modern humans were tool and weapon use as well as the development of complex social skills -- empathy included.  If chimpanzees are beginning to show such evolutionary traits, this is highly important.

In an article from Science Daily, an interesting correlation is drawn between the contagious act of yawning and empathy, as observed in chimpanzees.  Chimpanzees are our closest living relatives, so any new finding in terms of evolution is of extreme interest.  This study, as reported by Emory University, details that chimpanzees of related or known social groups have a higher rate of "catching" a yawn than they do from unrelated or unknown social groups.  This tends to align with the fact that in the wild, unrelated social groups tend to be aggressive against one another.  The tendency to have an empathetic reaction towards those of your your own social group is of benefit for both individual and group reasons.  Individually, it increases the survival of yourself as well as the ability to raise your offspring in a successful manner.  Group wise, the ability to forge empathetic reactions and understanding of your compatriots forms bonds that involve looking out for one another, especially those with whom you have blood ties with.

Perhaps there is a connection between the beginnings of seeing empathy in some of the social apes and the evolutionary path that led us modern humans to where we are now. In any event, as the Science Daily article states, finding a quantitative method of measuring empathy is difficult.  Using yawning as a scale is an extremely innovative and apparently useful way to measure it, as seen in this study.  Of interest is studying the potential for empathetic behaviors in other apes, monkeys, and potentially other mammals - although those studies have remained fairly inconclusive.

Resources:

Emory University (2011, April 7).  Chimpanzee's contagious yawning evidence of empathy, not just sleepiness, study shows. ScienceDaily.

Decety, J. & Svetlova, M., 2012. Putting together phylogenetic and ontogenetic perspective on empathy. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience 2 (2012), 1-24.