A new study from France indicates that monkeys might have the capacity to feel empathy, an important discovery that could link the animals closer to humans, according to the Daily Mail.
Sebastien Ballestaa and Jean-René Duhamel conducted the research, working with the Center of Cognitive Neuroscience in Bron and the University of Lyon.
Through their study, published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, they found that macaques "take the welfare of their friends into account when making behavior choices that could reward or punish their peers."
For the study, they took 14 pairs of long-tailed macaques and rhesus macaques and sat them in front of each other in pairs of two. When prompted, the monkeys could choose between rewarding their partner with juice or delivering an uncomfortable blast of air to their eyes.
"Most monkeys were inclined to refrain from delivering a mildly aversive airpuff and to grant juice rewards to their partner," wrote the scientists.
Eight of the 14 had a noticeable inclination toward rewarding their fellow monkey, while four were indifferent and two were considered "anti-social."
The scientists used eye-tracking technology to help them indicate whether the animals were impacted by the choices they made.
"Our results thus provide evidence of partner-dependent behavioral mechanisms shaping primates' social decisions," the scientists wrote.
