Common crows (Corvus corax) have a developed ability to empathize - say scientists from Austria, who have found that the behavior of one representative of this species can depend on the state of his relative, which he is watching.
It is interesting that only the negative state of the birds is "contagious". Details of the study that led to this conclusion appeared in the scientific publication Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“People live in society and are extremely influenced by those around them. Both close people and members of rather large groups can "infect" each other with good or bad moods. The likelihood of mood transfer depends on a number of factors - this is the degree of intimacy, and the individual level of empathy, and more subtle aspects,”says Jesse Andrienze of the University of Vienna, author of the study.
Andrienze noted that mood transfer has been more or less studied only for humans, but other species also have similar phenomena.
