Researchers have found the first solid evidence that elephants console each other in times of distress.
A research team found that Asian elephants use both touch on vocalization for consolation purposes, an Emory Health Sciences news release reported.
"For centuries, people have observed that elephants seem to be highly intelligent and empathic animals, but as scientists we need to actually test it," Joshua Plotnik, who began the research as a graduate student of psychology at Emory University, said in the news release.
Consolation is not common in the animal kingdom, but the behavior has been observed in canines, great apes, and some corvids.
"With their strong social bonds, it's not surprising that elephants show concern for others," co-author Frans de Waal, an Emory professor of psychology and director of Living Links at Emory's Yerkes National Primate Research Center, said in the news release. "This study demonstrates that elephants get distressed when they see others in distress, reaching out to calm them down, not unlike the way chimpanzees or humans embrace someone who is upset."
Plotnik and de Waal have proven that elephants can recognize themselves in a mirror in the past.
"Humans are unique in many ways, but not in as many ways as we once thought," Plotnik said.
The researchers observed 26 captive Asian elephants at an elephant camp in northern Thailand; the researchers recorded their stress reactions over the course of a year.
"When an elephant gets spooked, its ears go out, its tail stands erect or curls out, and it may emit a low-frequency rumble, trumpet and roar to signal its distress," Plotnik said.
The researchers found nearby elephants would often react to the distressed elephant by putting their trunk in its mouth or touching its face. The elephants often used sounds as consolation as well.
"The vocalization I heard most often following a distress event was a high, chirping sound," Plotnik said. "I've never heard that vocalization when elephants are alone. It may be a signal like, 'Shshhh, it's okay,' the sort of sounds a human adult might make to reassure a baby."
The elephants also adopted a similar "body or emotional" state as the distressed individual in a phenomenon known as ""emotional contagion"; this may be evidence that elephants feel empathy.
"When a character on the screen is scared, the hearts of the couple watching might race and they might move a bit closer and hold [each other's] hands," Plotnik said as an example.
"One hypothesis for why we don't see consolation as often is that more complex cognition may underlie it," Plotnik said. "Rather than just functioning as a way to maintain or repair relationships in a social group, consolation may also require empathy: The ability to put yourself emotionally into someone else's shoes."
The team hopes to perform the same study on wild elephants in the future.
