An Evolutionary View to Understanding Affective States across Species

Understanding the affective states (emotions and moods) of non-human animals is crucial to understand their needs, improve their welfare, and assess the effects of treatments for affective disorders in animals, be they preclinical models of human disorders, or patients in their own right. Existing knowledge regarding affective states across species is limited and fragmented. For example, it is unclear: (1) whether and to what extent different affective states occur in different species; (2) if these states are expressed and experienced in similar ways by different species; (3) which physiological mechanisms of affective states are shared across species; and (4) which indicators of affective states are valid across more than one species. AFFECT EVO brings together an interdisciplinary network of scholars in philosophy, psychology, humanities, social, computational, and natural sciences, with relevant stakeholders from industry, advocacy organizations, and governments. This network will apply an evolutionary framework to evaluate collaboratively and systematically what we know about affective states in non-human animals. This approach will (1) identify gaps in our knowledge, guiding future research; (2) provide a basis for developing strategies to reliably generalize knowledge about affective states across species; (3) develop better methods to assess affective states to improve animal welfare; and (4) develop better treatments for both animal and human affective disorders. We will also explore how the public and policy makers engage with the concept of affective states in animals and how this interacts with the implementation of new laws and policies that affect animals.