A baby’s first toy is often a soft stuffed bear. Soon, children may meet Winnie the Pooh and Paddington. They learn that these bears are kindhearted and polite with a good moral compass, cravings for honey notwithstanding. Bears also play major roles in folklore across cultures. But science has been surprisingly slow to illuminate the emotions and personalities of real-life bears.
One factor has been the fear of falling into the trap of anthropomorphism, and attributing human characteristics to animals. While there are necessary distinctions between human and animal behaviors, the lack of data on animal feelings and personalities makes it easy to fill in the gaps with assumptions. Anyone who believes real bears are friendly and kind might be in for a shock.
Research into a broad range of animal feelings has been held back by a 20th-century focus on limiting study to actions that scientists could objectively tally, such as physiologist Ivan Pavlov’s work training dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell. Now, researchers are trying to objectively measure animals’ inner lives.
In this issue, we report on the work of scientists around the world to study animals’ positive experiences, including what we call joy. Any pet owner will declare that their furry friends are clearly happy, but that impression could be influenced by the pleasure they bring to us. A group of scientists studying bonobos, dolphins and garrulous New Zealand parrots called keas is trying to develop a multispecies methodology for measuring joy. It’s not easy. Some of the prompts that the scientists thought would spark joy induced distress instead.
This isn’t just knowledge for knowledge’s sake; an animal’s personality can influence behavior, which in turn affects whether individual creatures thrive or perish in changing environments. As the research advances, conservationists are increasingly including animal personality in efforts to protect imperiled species.
To round out our special report on animals, we take a trip to a hidden world where animals live beneath the snow: the subnivium. Animal and plant life can survive harsh winters there because the snow acts like a down blanket trapping heat. But it’s a fragile world, one that’s being threatened by warmer winters caused by climate change. Scientists are racing to figure out how best to help this fairy-tale ecosystem survive on a changing planet.