Animals Experience Emotions And Exhibit Distinct Personalities, Science Confirms

2 December 2017

 - While most of us wouldn’t go out of our way to hurt another living creature, plenty of people don’t think twice about eating meat. Where their food came from and the destruction to animal habitats that is caused to sustain modern lifestyles never crosses many people’s minds. Even though many people would like to believe that animals don’t have feelings and aren’t affected by the way we treat them, science shows they do indeed experience emotions and have distinct personalities much like humans do.

It won’t come as much of a surprise that horses are very emotional, given their social nature. Any horse owner will tell you their horse has feelings, but it actually goes much further than that.

Researchers have found that one of the factors with the biggest influence on horses’ emotions is the way they are housed. Horses that were kept outdoors in fields had a lower tendency to be afraid of new objects than those who were kept individually in boxes. They found the animals are capable of experiencing both anxiety and fear.