抄録
The present study examined rats ’helping-like behavior towards restrained conspesifics in a trap. In a trapped condition, a rat was restrained in a wire mesh trap placed in an open field. The trap had a slide door that could be opened only from outside. A subject rat was placed in the field and allowed to explore the trap for 30 min. On an empty trial, restrained rats were not placed in the trap. Identical subjects received the trapped and empty trials alternately for 20 trials for each condition. Rats reliably learned to open the door of the trap and release the trapped rats without any obvious rewards. It was expected that rats would open the door quicker on the trapped trials than on the empty trials if the rat ’s door opening behavior was motivated to help conspesifics. However, latency of door opening response remained almost equal between the trapped and the empty conditions. Additionally, in almost all cases subject rats entered the trap by themselves after opening the door. The results suggest that apparent helping behavior towards other conspesifics in rats might be induced by nonsocial motivation such as manipulating or entering into the trap but not by empathy or reducing distress in conspesifics.
https://ror.org/02hwp6a56 
