Date of Award
Spring 2025
Project Type
Dissertation
Program or Major
Psychology
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
First Advisor
Brett Gibson
Second Advisor
Leslie Curren
Third Advisor
William Stine
Abstract
Studies have suggested that rats may be motivated by empathy, a characteristic that has been historically viewed as uniquely human, when engaging in helping other individuals escape stressful situations. Some researchers refute this idea, suggesting rats may be motivated by social interaction or other factors. To better understand what is driving helping behavior, it is critical to investigate the effectiveness of the stressors used in previous studies, how stress levels change over time, and how the stress of the recipient is related to the actions of the helper. If restraint is causing sufficient stress to the trapped individual and a free individual releases them, that would provide evidence that the free rat is perceiving the stress of their conspecific, understanding the cause, and acting in a way that alleviates that stress. Changes in stress levels across trials may account for changes in the helper’s behavior. For example, if the trapped rat becomes less stressed by restraint over time, they may no longer need immediate assistance from the helper rat. Additionally, if the stress levels of the helper rat and trapped rat are correlated that would provide evidence of shared emotional state, a component of empathy. Though social relationships have been investigated in rodents, few studies have examined social preferences in rats and none in the context of helping behavior. Studies involving helping behavior in rats almost exclusively use pairs of individuals that are familiar based on the evidence that that familiarity plays an important role in the components of empathy. Assessing whether rats prefer to help a familiar or an unfamiliar conspecific and whether this changes with the possibility of social contact may provide insight into the underlying mechanisms of helping behavior.
Recommended Citation
Kimball-Sabatella, Taylor Anne, "Assessing the roles of corticosterone and familiarity in prosocial helping tasks" (2025). Doctoral Dissertations. 2922.
https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation/2922