Helping behavior tasks are proposed to assess prosocial or “empathic” behavior in rodents. This paradigm characterizes the behavior of subject animals presented with the opportunity to release a conspecific from a distressing situation. Previous studies found a preference in rats for releasing restrained or distressed conspecifics over other controls (e.g., empty restrainers or inanimate objects). An empathy account was offered to explain the observed behaviors, claiming subjects were motivated to reduce the distress of others based on a rodent homologue of empathy. An opposing account attributes all previous results to subjects seeking social contact. To dissociate these two accounts for helping behavior, we presented subject rats with three simultaneous choice alternatives: releasing a restrained conspecific, engaging a nonrestrained conspecific, or not socializing. Subjects showed an initial preference for socializing with the nonrestrained conspecific, and no preference for helping. This result contradicts the empathy account, but is consistent with the social-contact account of helping behavior.

建议帮助行为任务来评估啮齿动物的亲社会或“移情”行为。这种范式描述了主题动物的行为，这些动物有机会从令人痛苦的情况中释放同种动物。以前的研究发现，大鼠比其他控制（例如，空的限制器或无生命的物体）更喜欢释放受约束或痛苦的同种。提供了一个同理心帐户来解释观察到的行为，声称受试者的动机是基于同理心的啮齿动物同源物来减少他人的痛苦。一个相反的帐户将所有先前的结果归因于寻求社交联系的对象。为了区分这两种帮助行为的原因，我们向受试者大鼠提供了三种同时选择的选择：释放受限制的同种，参与非受限制的同种，或不社交。受试者最初表现出与不受限制的同种人交往的偏好，而不是帮助的偏好。这一结果与移情账户相矛盾，但与帮助行为的社会联系账户相一致。