Animal empathy reconsidered: a multidimensional profile account

Empathy is the glue that holds societies together and yet several fundamental questions about empathy persist. What is empathy (the definitional question)? Is it uniquely human and, if not, which nonhuman animals possess empathy (the distribution question)? Which type or quality of empathy is realized in different species (the quality question)? To tackle these three questions, we developed a species-sensitive, multidimensional profile account of empathy. The main function of this account is to enable cross-species comparisons and to capture the rich variety of typical empathetic phenomena. Therefore, we aim to characterize behaviour-based cognitive profiles of empathy which are built on multifactorial characterizations of the dimensions of empathy and of the features realizing these dimensions. The distribution question can be answered by assessing family resemblances of profiles of empathy to paradigmatic cases of empathy. Answers to the quality question can be provided with reference to the relevant empathy profile, which allows us to describe and predict associated behaviours. To gain an initial understanding of the feasibility of this framework for interspecies comparisons, we applied it to four groups of animals: rodents, apes, canids and corvids. Comparing these groups, we demonstrate that each species has a specific empathy profile which has a predictive power: in complex situations requiring empathy, distinct profiles will result in more distinct behavioural responses whereas similar profiles will result in more similar responses, even among phylogenetically distinct groups. This new multidimensional profile account enables fine-grained comparisons within and between species instead of the prevailing all or nothing perspectives of empathy. Furthermore, it offers the integration of phylogenetic and ontogenetic perspectives thereby providing a crucial tool to explicate the notion of empathy to humans and other animals in a species-sensitive way. We demonstrate this framework by applying it specifically to empathy, and the framework's advantages invite it to be generalized to all rich and flexible cognitive abilities in nonhuman animals.