Do fish have feelings?

[Lissaspence]

So I'm curious to see what everyone thinks on this. Do you think fish can feel basic emotions like being happy, sad, bored or scared? Do you think that these types of feelings are strickly limited to humans or maybe just to mammals or can all living creatures experience this? Do you think that emotional feelings such as happiness are directly linked to inteligence?

I personally think that all animals have emotions and are capable of being happy or sad. I've worked with animals a long time and have seen it in cats, dogs and horses to the point where it's undeniable to me. I don't see any emotional reactions in fish but I think if some animals have them than it's feasible to assume they all do.
But I know some people feel very strongly that humans are the only ones capable of feelings. What do you think?

 

[Lissaspence]

Bump

 

[krisisdog]

50 mins and a bump? Chillllllll lol
Yes, I think some fish have feelings - they can become super excited when you walk by expecting food, sulk when they dont get fed, sulk if you mess their tank up.
I've seen fish hide when a certain person comes up to the tank, come out to others, so I'd say thats being scared of that person (young kid, always hit the tank, tried to prod the fish).
My Archerfish for example will spit into the lid constantly while I'm sitting at my desk until I swivel around to look at him, then he'll stop. I turn back around, he starts again.

I feel very sorry for the people who think that only humans can have feelings, thats just pure ignorance and delusional IMHO - look at cats, dogs, birds, horses etc.

 

[knifegill]

Okay. I'll bite. I've taken some behavioral psychology (not a lot, but the basics) and understand that fish experience negative and positive stimuli. Their physiological responses to these stimuli are measurable only in levels of arousal and neural activity. Whether or not these qualify as 'emotion' is still up for grabs, but so is human emotion. Our autonomic response to stimuli is often the same set of physiological excitement whether in fear or passion. There are differences for some 'emotions' but many are identical without the frontal cortex (higher reasoning) to tie percieved circumstances to. This is why a person can sometimes laugh and cry at the same time.
Without rambling too much more, I'd say my opinion of fish emotion is that the organism may experience the same rush we do, but without a strong visual memory and vivid list of previous experiences against which to weigh a given situation, they don't know if they are happy or sad, but feel strong and weak negative and positive 'emotions' in a given moment. So my answer is "Sort of".

 

[fcamargo6thave]

yes they do

 

[Stump]

Okay. I'll bite. I've taken some behavioral psychology (not a lot, but the basics) and understand that fish experience negative and positive stimuli. Their physiological responses to these stimuli are measurable only in levels of arousal and neural activity. Whether or not these qualify as 'emotion' is still up for grabs, but so is human emotion. Our autonomic response to stimuli is often the same set of physiological excitement whether in fear or passion. There are differences for some 'emotions' but many are identical without the frontal cortex (higher reasoning) to tie percieved circumstances to. This is why a person can sometimes laugh and cry at the same time.
Without rambling too much more, I'd say my opinion of fish emotion is that the organism may experience the same rush we do, but without a strong visual memory and vivid list of previous experiences against which to weigh a given situation, they don't know if they are happy or sad, but feel strong and weak negative and positive 'emotions' in a given moment. So my answer is "Sort of".

Good post.

 

[VLDesign]

IMO All living breathing creatures have the same levels of emotions and feelings.

And any scientific psychobabble that says differently is flawed and inaccurate because it's all based on the human response levels and conditions.

We (humans) always base our scientific data points on the only thing we know for sure, and that is how the human animal works. All other animal studies are really at best just a guess since we can never know for sure how other species work or respond since we cannot properly communicate with them.

 

[Lissaspence]

There are differences for some 'emotions' but many are identical without the frontal cortex (higher reasoning) to tie percieved circumstances to. This is why a person can sometimes laugh and cry at the same time.

So to simplify, Knifgill you think that they are capable of the most basic emotions only because they don't have the ability to tie what they are feeling to past experiences. Is that right?

Does anyone know what other animals have a frontal cortex?

 

[BC1]

I think that they may to some extent. I have a silver arowana who refused to eat and seemed stressed when I removed the 2 oscars that it was raised with from the tank. This went on for about a week until I put it in the new tank with the oscars then they started to eat again. But then again the oscars didn't seem to care so who knows. Maybe because they stayed together the whole time.

 

[stewnew]

IMO All living breathing creatures have the same levels of emotions and feelings.

disagree completlet

higher animals have a more developed frontal lobe and a more developed brain altogether. the only portion of it that we have in common with many animals is the brain stem, which governs little more than survival instincts