(NPR) To Come To The Rescue Or Not? Rats, Like People, Take Cues From Bystanders

To Come To The Rescue Or Not? Rats, Like People, Take Cues From Bystanders





To Come To The Rescue Or Not? Rats, Like People, Take Cues From Bystanders






Faced with a rat trapped in a restrainer, a free rat opens the trap's door to liberate the trapped animal (while stepping on its head — "very rat-ish behavior," says University of Chicago neurobiologist Peggy Mason).



David Christopher/University of Chicago


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David Christopher/University of Chicago













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To Come To The Rescue Or Not? Rats, Like People, Take Cues From Bystanders



Experiments in people have long shown that the presence of indifferent bystanders hurts the chances that someone will help a stranger in an emergency. Rats, it turns out, behave the same way.