Instability Can Dampen Your Outlook

Just like humans, rats apparently can be plagued by pessimism.

Researchers at the University of Bristol in England found that rats that were housed in unpredictable conditions seem to be burdened with a more negative outlook than rats that live in settled, stable circumstances.

In this study, published in the Jan. 22 issue of Nature, the rats were trained to associate a particular sound pitch with a positive event, the arrival of food. They were also trained that a different sound pitch predicted a negative event -- no food and a short noise.

The rats were then presented with sounds of intermediate pitch to determine whether they believed these ambiguous sounds indicated a good or bad event.

The rats kept in unpredictable housing conditions were more likely to regard these ambiguous sounds as heralds of negative events than the rats in stable environments.

"Studies have shown that anxious people seem to be particularly on the look-out for negative and threatening things, even at a subconscious level. We now have evidence that other animals may behave in a similar way, and this is an important finding for animal welfare," researcher Liz Paul, of the Centre for Behavioral Biology at Bristol University, says in a prepared statement.

She and her colleagues say their research provides a new way to measure the emotional state of animals. That may help scientists better understand the effects of lodging conditions on animal emotion and welfare.

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