Can animals feel sadness (emotion)?

It depends on the animal. For example, do bees get sad when one of them dies? I doubt it. Does a dog get sad when you yell at it? Definitely. Depending on the development of the animals brain and the social structure that particular species has, the animals will have varying levels of access to certain emotions depending on the situation, just like a human. Anyone who's ever owned a mammalian pet will probably say yes to this thread.

I remember reading recently about studies being done on monkeys that prove that they can feel regret for previous actions as well as plan ahead for the future. Their brains are built similarly to ours, so it makes sense they have capabilities similar to ours.

Almost forgot about your goose. I don't know if it feels sadness, it seems like geese have smaller brains, so maybe they don't have the emotional depth to mourn past occurrences.

We are animals and so are monkeys. I'm pretty sure monkeys feel emotion. Like the above poster says, it depends on the animal. The more complex the organism, the more likely it is to feel a glimpse of emotion.

Scientific consensus these days is that most animals cannot feel complex emotions, such as sadness, or joy.
Animals can feel pain (that's a sense, not an emotion though) and satisfaction of wants and fear, but only few species have a range of emotions beyond that.
Among birds, only corvids (ravens, crows) are suspected to experience emotions, because they tend to invent games / do things for their amusement.
In mammals, it is mostly whales, apes and rats that are suspected to be capable of emotions.



Sorry to disagree, but it's more likely to experience fear than sadness. Sadness is a rather complex emotion, and animals such as dogs are too simply structured (for example, that's why you should reprimand a dog immediately after it has done something bad, because otherwise it cannot make the mental connection).

My childhood guinea pigs didn't seem all that upset after we had to give their babies away to better homes. Even when the father died, the mother and the remaining baby weren't too affected.

It was only after the mother died that the last poor little guinea pig (the daughter) who was left all alone seemed upset. Strangely the dog started to take an interest in her then (she was really excited to see her, licked her fur and watched over her, etc). Either the dog sort of took over the motherly role, or the dog picked up on her stronger emotions that I didn't sense.

That may be true, but dog's are still able to be sad. When my dog when was younger and we had to leave him in his cage when we went somewhere, he would howl after we left the house. To this day whenever my mother leaves the house he stares at the door and whimpers in sadness for a few minutes before lying down.

Have you ever owned a dog?

Even in humans, the concept of parental love for children is not instinctive, but a social construct. Between the european middle ages and the end of the eighteenth century, children were regarded as objects of possession, not real people. Accordingly small was the grief at the loss of a child*; only with the advent of a new view of children in the age of enlightenement (Rousseau, Pestalozzi) and the 19th century's focus on manpower that changed considerably.
That said, this of course means that a genuine feeling of loss over the disappearance of (one of) their young is even less likely in simpler animals, such as geese or guinea pigs.


[size=10]*[/h][size=10](videlicet e.g. Badinter, Élisabeth (1980): L'Amour en plus : histoire de l'amour maternel. Paris:Flammarion)[/h]


Yessir.

I'm not doubting that he whimpers, the question is whether it's actually sadness he's experiencing, or simply the fear of change (because he's being left alone by his "pack"). We humans tend to project human behaviour and emotions onto our pets or animals in general, and that all too often doesn't provide a very accurate perspective.

well yeah it depends on the animal not all of them have much intellagence for deep emotion like a fish it's eggs and babys are always eaten by other fish yet they don't (suposidly) feel any thing they just have more.
as for birds they protect thier young so they prob do feel some king of hurt when thier offspring die but I belive that they just have more and move on
it's hard to tell but every spcies is differnt.

Some animals eat their young. I don't think they do it just for the hell of it, but whatever the reason, they'll sometimes eat one of their newly-born litter. I believe cats and hamsters or gerbils do it, along with maybe some other animals.

I would argue that although a complex question, its a consensus in society that, no, they don't.

Although society recognizes animals can feel pain, by criminalizing animal cruelty, on the other hand it is far from clear whether we truly believe animals "feel" in a meaningful sense.

However, as has been discovered, emotions arise in the mammalian brain, which human beings share in common with other mammals as well as many other species. But is this really the case?

Personally, I see this as a basic anthropomorisation of basic animal instinct.Lets take an example, for instance, love. Does a Dog love? No, a dog learns behaivours that aid it's survival, that we interpret as love (e.g. cuddling up to us when it wants food.). It's an animal, and nothing will change that, we only worry about the rights of animals because we believe we have our own basic rights correct, and need a new question to ponder on.

So in short, no, I believe you goose does not feel emotion, nor does a dog, cat, rat or hamster.

i believe animals do feel sadness and other emotion maybe not all but most animals do.This one scene in March of the Penguins made me believe the one where the mother penguin lost her baby and was so sad she tried to steal another penguins baby.

a lot of animals tend to kill a few of their kids if they deem that there's not enough resources for all of them to grow up healthy//survive. I'm sure this happens for humans as well at those places where you can get away with it. At least that's what the newspaper says every now and then

Depends on their level of intelligence, like what the above poster said.

Honestly I've never really cared for animal rights. It's a fucking animal, when it developes a written language then I'll start caring about how it feels. That pry makes me a bad person but it's just how I feel.

O course they can feel it
As long your heart
reach to there soul
they can feel your sadness
the only thing they can do is to comfort
us
they will comfort us
just to rid those sadness
from our face
and change that with a smile
they be there to cheer us up
to change our frowns into
a lively smile ^_^

they share the same traits as humans except for the fact that they arent exactly self aware. from what ive gathered they arent capable of grasping the concept that they exist, but when it comes to offspring they share the same maternal instincts as any mother. she protects and nurtures her young and should they be in danger she defends them with her life. i guess thats more about instinct then anything else... but i can only imagine theres more factual evidence on animal affection somewhere.

they say that dogs pick up on your subconscious emotions esp style. how could they comprehend how your feeling if they didnt associate the emotion with their own? i doubt theres much research supporting this but ive had more then one occasion where it seems like my dog acts according to how i feel.

I think they feel emotions, but not the same emotions humans feel.

animals and humans are different. We talk differently, walk differently, and think differently. Why would we feel the same emotions the same way?

Maybe every animal has a high level of emotion, they just express it differently. who knows? Sense the only way we can test the level of emotion is by our scale and with our emotions, I dont think we'll ever know.

thats just me, thou.

thanks!

Most of our emotions are based heavily on the way modern society has made them.

Why do we cry? To get attention from something able to protect us; care for us.
Why do we fear? To protect ourselves from harm, increase reaction and heart speed; awareness.
The list goes on...

Animals, at least many of them, do feel some of these. Basic instinct for everything is self preservation, and to keep up the species, of course. So many of their 'emotions' are self interest.

I do remember reading some things on animals, such as horses, be sad after loosing a young one, and almost mourning around the corpse... So I think it also does depend on the type.

The goose, on the other hand... I don't think cared, really. It noticed the little one's absents, sure, but not really be sad for the loosing it. Can't say for sure, though. Just observation.