Looking on the Bright Side of Livestock Emotions—the Potential of Their Transmission to Promote Positive Welfare

Abstract

Emotions can be defined as an individual's affective reaction to an external and/or internal event that, in turn, generates a simultaneous cascade of behavioral, physiological, and cognitive changes. Those changes that can be perceived by conspecifics have the potential to also affect other's emotional states, a process labeled as “emotional contagion.” Especially in the case of gregarious species, such as livestock, emotional contagion can have an impact on the whole group by, for instance, improving group coordination and strengthening social bonds. We noticed that the current trend of research on emotions in livestock, i.e., investigating affective states as a tool to assess and improve animal welfare, appears to be unbalanced. A majority of studies focuses on the individual rather than the social component of emotions. In this paper, we highlight current limitations in the latter line of research and suggest a stronger emphasis on the mechanisms of how emotions in livestock are transmitted and shared, which could serve as a promising tool to synergistically enhance the welfare of all individuals within a group.

Fear expressions of dogs during New Year fireworks: a video analysis

“…Emotions are short-term affective states that are elicited by internal or external events and comprise changes in several components, including neuro-physiological, cognitive (appraisal), motivational and expression components, as well as the subjective experience, or feeling 1 , 2 . As nonhuman animals cannot report on what they are feeling, we can attempt to infer the emotion that is likely being experienced based on changes in these emotion components (e.g.…”

“…As nonhuman animals cannot report on what they are feeling, we can attempt to infer the emotion that is likely being experienced based on changes in these emotion components (e.g. physiological stress responses, behavioural expression and behavioural choices) and the circumstances in which these are occurring 1 , 3 . For instance, behaviour and expressions during exposure to potential threats can be assumed to be fear-related while those in response to denial of access to a desirable stimulus can be interpreted as frustration (c.f.…”

Emotional contagion and its implications for animal welfare

“…It is a highly efficient way for fitness-relevant information to spread through a social group, and is widely considered the most basic form of empathic responses [3]. While emotional contagion does not involve all of the cognitive and emotional systems that we associate with human empathy, it is highly relevant given that it is widespread in animals [4] and has applied value for animal welfare, especially under captive conditions [5]. Emotional contagion implies that it is not only important to consider the effect of a treatment on an individual, but also the extent to which its group members may be affected by its response, even if they were not subjected to the treatment themselves.…”

“…Evidence for emotional contagion is widespread across animal taxa, but primarily restricted to the transmission of negative emotional states such as fear, pain, or distress ( [2], see Table 1 [7,9]). This may be in part because negative emotional states are easier to detect, due to their more direct link to survival and fitness, but it also may reflect the more well-developed methods for identifying negative emotional states in animals (reviewed in [5]). While studies of emotional contagion in farm animals have lagged behind other species (see Fig.…”

“…Although research on transmission of emotions in applied ethology is still in its infancy (see Fig. 1), the available literature is a promising indicator of what we might expect to find across a range of farm animals [5]. Future research should aim at increasing our knowledge of emotional contagion in farm animals to design husbandry environments that improve their welfare, that is, by decreasing the spread of negative emotions or promoting the spread of positive ones [5].…”