Adaptation Physiology Group, Department of Animal Sciences, Wageningen University and Research, PO Box 338, Wageningen, 6700 AH, The Netherlands.
Sci Rep. 2024 Oct 29;14(1):25944. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-77394-7.
Emotional contagion can be defined as the transfer of an emotional state from the demonstrator of that state towards an observer. Social buffering is a process by which the demonstrator has a reduced stress response due to the presence of one or more other individuals. While both processes are well studied separately, it is unknown whether and how both processes are related. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the relation between emotional contagion and social buffering in pigs. Hereto correlations were performed between measures of emotional contagion (i.e., the difference in behaviour of observer pigs between a situation with and without demonstrator pigs present) and measures of social buffering (i.e., the difference in behaviour of demonstrator pigs in a negative situation with and without observer pigs present). The results did not point towards a clear and consistent relation as only few and contrasting correlations between measures of emotional contagion and social buffering were found, and after correcting for chance no significant correlations remained. To conclude, more research is needed on the relation between emotional contagion and social buffering to shed light on how and when emotions will spread through and/or are buffered in a group of animals.
情绪传染可以被定义为一种情绪状态从情绪的展示者向观察者的转移。社会缓冲是一种过程，通过这种过程，由于一个或多个其他个体的存在，展示者的应激反应会减轻。虽然这两个过程都被单独研究过，但尚不清楚这两个过程是否以及如何相关。因此，本研究的目的是调查猪的情绪传染和社会缓冲之间的关系。为此，对情绪传染的度量（即观察者猪在有和没有展示者猪在场的情况下行为的差异）和社会缓冲的度量（即展示者猪在有和没有观察者猪在场的负面情况下行为的差异）之间进行了相关性分析。结果并没有指向一个清晰一致的关系，因为只发现了少量的和相互矛盾的情绪传染和社会缓冲之间的相关性，并且在考虑到机会因素后，没有显著的相关性仍然存在。总之，需要更多的研究来阐明情绪传染和社会缓冲之间的关系，以了解情绪如何以及何时在一群动物中传播和/或得到缓冲。
