Elephants, the gentle giants of the animal kingdom, are not only known for their impressive physical stature but also for their profound emotional intelligence and empathy.

As researchers delve into the depths of these majestic creatures’ emotional world, it becomes clear that beneath their thick skin and immense size lies an intricate tapestry of feelings, familial bonds, and complex social interactions, rivaling even those of humans.

Researchers have commonly found that just like us, elephants have a potent ability to show empathy. Their complex brain structure and emotional capacity, which includes a cerebral cortex with about one-third the number of neurons compared to a human brain, underlies their high-level processing abilities.

This includes memory, reasoning, learning, and intelligence, according to Alex Van der Walt, B.Sc. in animal science. The elephant’s brain, weighing in at around 11 pounds and housing roughly 257 billion neurons, facilitates these deep emotional experiences.

Elephants are exposed to more death, struggles for survival, and dependence on the herd. Consequently, they arguably form deeper bonds with their herd members and could feel grief more greatly than humans do, Van der Walt explains. Their demonstration of empathy is vivid and multifaceted.

For instance, when an elephant gets stuck or is unable to keep pace with the herd due to injury, their companions respond with assistance and patience, respectively. This behavior extends to mourning, where elephants show grief by standing over the remains of a deceased member in silence, often touching the corpse with their trunks.

Ronald Oldfield, a senior instructor from the Case Western Reserve University Department of Biology, notes that elephants express their emotions through sounds like trumpeting and body movements, with gentle trunk touches akin to acts of kindness and care among humans.

The matriarch, or leader elephant, uses such communications to guide and assist younger members of the herd.

Comparing elephants to humans in terms of empathy is challenging. “Some humans might be more empathetic than others, and it’s likely the same for elephants,” says Oldfield. “However, proving that one species is generally more empathetic than another is hard to do with an experiment.”

This suggests that the manifestation and measurement of empathy could be a complex blend of innate ability and environmental influences for both species.

The social behavior and organization within elephant communities confer benefits to animals living in environments such as forests.

Elephants’ intricate societal structures necessitate and facilitate the development of such emotional intelligence. Their empathetic nature is not only confined to interactions within their species.

Elephants have displayed unique behaviors such as mourning their dead, with instances of them stopping to take a silent pause over the remains of a deceased elephant, a sign of grief and respect.

Elephants’ impressive cognitive abilities are further evidenced by their problem-solving skills, use of tools, and communication acumen.

They have demonstrated the ability to use objects to reach food, craft fly swatters from branches, and use sounds and chemical signals to communicate across large distances.

Relevant articles:
– A Massive Elephant Could Be More Empathetic Than a Human, Discover Magazine, Feb 12, 2024
– Elephant empathy and their emotions, lalibela.net
– 7 Behaviors That Prove Elephants Are Incredibly Smart, baanchangelephantpark.com
– Understanding elephant empathy and their emotions, World Animal Protection