Insects May Be Able To Feel Fear, Anger & Empathy, After All

Bees that had been shaken became pessimistic, glass-half-empty characters that were more likely to react to the nasty smell in the mixtures and recoil rather than being attracted to the yummy smell—a result of presumably being pretty irritated. Unshaken bees, on the other hand, remained their more optimistic, glass-half-full selves—and were more likely to see the mixtures as half-appetizing, as opposed to half-disgusting. Moreover, there were emotionally relevant changes in neurotransmitter levels in the shaken bees, changing levels of serotonin and dopamine, for example..

Scientifically, the act of shaking the bees can be interpreted as having created an internal neurological state that affected their subsequent behavior—all associated with changes in brain chemistry. This implies that agitated honeybees exhibit pessimistic cognitive biases..

Yet the authors were reluctant to say that this anger-like state was a definitive emotion. It is interesting to note that if dogs did the same thing and turned down their food after their owner had just died, for example, many wouldn’t doubt that the behavior was emotional.

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Thankfully, we are beginning to stop with our centuries long obsession with human species superiority. This belief made it permissible to ravage and raid the earth, and downplay emotions felt by other animals. Humans feel love—other animals merely bond. Humans feel jealous—but other animals merely guard resources.

While we cannot experience what it feels like for a bee to have a bee in its bonnet, a fly to feel like a bundle of nerves, or for a woodlouse to chill out with its buddies, neither can we experience other humans’ emotions. It is only because we can communicate (to a degree) that we know other humans have emotions too. Bear in mind that emotions are so subjective that we aren’t especially accurate at understanding other humans’ emotions at the best of times—no less the emotions of another species!

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