The 7 Core Emotions We All Share

By Lynn Acton

 

All learning and behavior are based on emotions. Positive emotions feel good, so they motivate animals to do the things that help them survive and thrive. Negative emotions motivate animals to avoid anything that might threaten survival. There are no neutral emotions. All mammals, including humans, share the same 7 core emotions. Four of them are positive, three are negative. They are written in capital letters because they have specific scientific meanings based on the part of the brain activated, the chemicals produced, the behavior that accompanies them, and the subjective feelings that humans report. This convention was devised by Dr Jaak Panksepp, the courageous neuroscientist who pioneered the study of animal emotions at a time when it was considered professional suicide for a scientist to even acknowledge that animals had emotions. These are the 7 core emotions, and how they relate to horses:

Positive Emotions

 

CARE is the bond that ensures that the young of a species are nurtured and protected. Young animals deprived of it cannot become emotionally healthy adults. The bond a horse has with his mother must be strong because foals are mobile and vulnerable, but it is just the first of many bonds a well-socialized horse will form in his lifetime.

Horses need social groups for survival, and social groups survive on cooperation, not competition.

Bonds create a network of social connections that make for a cohesive group. Domestic horses often lack the security of bonds because of poor socialization or high turnover in groups.

Horses bond with people they trust to keep them safe. Positive emotions make them feel safe. Negative emotions do not.

Many ideas and techniques promoted by conventional horsemanship interfere with bonds between horses and people. These are some critical ones: 

• Invading horses’ personal space in ways that make them uncomfortable. 
• “Correcting” horses for entering people’s personal space even when they are gentle, as Brandy is in the photo below. 
• Attempts to establish “leadership” through dominance. 
• Training only with negative reinforcement.

SEEKING is the urge to explore. It activates horses’ curiosity and Investigative Behavior, leading them to discover the resources they need to survive. It also prompts them to evaluate potential danger and determine what is safe or not, so they don’t need to run from everything suspicious.

We activate SEEKING any time we let a horse investigate a novel object or explore a new situation without pressure or distraction. We do not need to reward Investigative Behavior because SEEKING is associated with the “feel-good” neurotransmitter dopamine, a more powerful reinforcer than any we can offer.

SEEKING leads to cognitive learning; information is remembered and generalized so that similar objects or situations cause less concern in the future. After I allowed Brandy to inspect this ditch carefully, she never hesitated at it again.

Encouraging SEEKING is very effective in building bonds with horses, reducing anxiety and spookiness, and healing traumatized or shutdown horses.

 

PLAY is defined by the underlying emotion of spontaneous joy, not the activity itself. Calling a training exercise a game does not make it PLAY.

 

PLAY is essential for normal physical and emotional development, and for learning the sophisticated social skills required to get along with other horses. PLAY-deprived horses are more aggressive and less able to create bonds. In free-roaming and naturally kept herds, older colts and stallions play with youngsters, tempering their actions to avoid injuries. Mares generally do not play; they must spend more time eating to make milk and gestate the next foal.

 

Engaging in PLAY with your horse can be bonding and confidence building provided HE enjoys the activity. Brandy was afraid of the ball until she learned a game where we took turns pushing it. Discovering she could control the previously scary object boosted her confidence. Typical of mares, she plays only when someone is playing with her, as my grandson is doing. Geldings and stallions are more likely to play independently with objects or play with each other.

Horses who feel safe with you may do things to make you laugh. Horses understand that laughing is a good thing!

LUST is responsible for behaviors aroused by sex hormones. It has to be a strong urge for a species to survive. It’s the one emotion in which male and female brain chemicals differ dramatically.

 Stallions, contrary to myth, are not inherently aggressive. In the wild, more peaceful stallions have more foals and healthier foals. Aggression in domestic stallions results from poor socialization, poor training, and social isolation.

 “Marish” behavior is not a joke. Dismissing behavior as a joke means that the real cause is never addressed. Defensive, aggressive, or “grumpy” behavior in mares can be caused by pain, either from estrus or other causes. However, most of the mares presented to the University of Pennsylvania’s Veterinary Hospital for “mare behavior problems” did not have a medical problem. Their behavior resulted from dominance / obedience-oriented handling that created defensiveness. Discomfort related to estrus is not a training issue. Unless veterinary intervention is indicated, the most productive response is to make allowances and offer the TLC you would want in her place.

My husband’s mare Sapphire is an example. She was often described as a “pushy, dominant mare” until I realized I was making her defensive by trying to prove I was more dominant than she was. When I became her Protector instead, her emotional state shifted from mainly negative to positive. I saw that she was really as gentle and sensitive as she appears in this photo.

Negative Emotions:

 

FEAR is meant to help animals avoid or escape danger. In horses, it can appear as Fight, Flight, Fidget, or Freeze. Watch carefully for the first subtle signs because FEAR can be hidden by good manners, too-strict training, or eagerness to please. When the first signs of FEAR are overlooked, the behavior may escalate until you notice. In a well-socialized group, it is every individual’s responsibility to warn others of potential danger, and it is everyone else’s responsibility to take notice.

Behavior related to FEAR is not disobedience; it is a horse trying to stay safe, and quite possibly keep his person safe at the same time. In the photo, Bronzz has frozen, weight back for a quick getaway, but his focus is on the object of concern. This moment is the tipping point! Insisting he move forward would escalate his FEAR. Instead, I encouraged Investigative Behavior (SEEKING), so he could satisfy himself that we were both safe. Thus, I shifted him from FEAR (a negative emotion) to SEEKING (a positive emotion).

RAGE (aggression) is meant to make a threat go away. It occurs most often when a frightened horse feels trapped, often by fences or equipment.

 

Aggression, as in the photo, is very rare in naturally-kept herds. It most often involves self-defense or defense of offspring, and it is quickly resolved without injury. Even rival stallions usually opt for elaborate posturing rather than risk injury in a fight. Many photos presented as “stallions fighting” are actually stallions engaged in mock battles with their friends.

 

What appears to be dominance-related aggression in domestic groups reflects resource guarding or FEAR among poorly socialized individuals forced together in unnatural groups, kept in confined spaces with concentrated resources. Aggression toward people is nearly always provoked by FEAR, and very restrained compared to the lethal injury they could easily inflict.

PANIC and GRIEF are the same emotional system, and it is closely related to physical pain.

PANIC is the initial distress when a companion can’t be found and doesn’t answer frantic calls. GRIEF is the despair and depression that follows when all hope of reunion is lost.

A foal experiences PANIC and the accompanying stress hormones when mom temporarily can’t be found. His whinnies alert Mom, they are reunited, and feel-good chemicals flood his body. All’s well! Resilience builds over time. By age 8 to 10 months the foal has the maturity, independence, and emotional security for weaning. In a socially normal situation, weaning happens naturally and with no stress.

When a foal is forcibly weaned, his body is flooded with stress chemicals but no relief. When his unheeded cries eventually cease, he has not “gotten over” the loss of his mother. He has given up in despair, like this foal in this photo. His brain chemistry is altered, making him less resilient to stress and more susceptible to separation anxiety for the rest of his life.

Conclusion:

When the focus is on what we want from a horse, obedient behavior is the measure of success, and emotions are often overlooked. Yet all behavior is prompted by emotions. Every minute your horse spends in a positive emotional state contributes to his physical and emotional welfare, and ability to be a reliable cooperative partner. Your bond is strengthened when he associates you with positive feelings.

 

References:
Discover Interview: Jaak Panksepp Pinned Down Humanity’s 7 Primal Emotions By Pamela Weintraub May 30, 2012
https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/discover-interview-jaak-panksepp-pinned-down-humanitys-7-primal-emotions

Affective neuroscience of the emotional BrainMind: evolutionary perspectives and implications for understanding depression by Jaak Panksepp, PhD https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3181986/

Jaak Panksepp’s Neuroscience Of Emotional Processing

https://www.owenparachute.com/jaak-panksepp-neuroscience.html

The science of emotions: Jaak Panksepp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65e2qScV_K8

Animal Emotions online course taught by Karolina Westlund PhD
https://illis.se/en/

Rachel Bedingfield’s YouTube series on how emotions relate to horses

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpOhlX5N_eE&t=5s

 

“The Motivated Brain: Improving Student Engagement, Attention and Perseverance” by Gayle Gregory and Martha Kaufeldt
https://asdn.org/wp-content/uploads/1-Motivated-Brain-Excerpt-pgs.pdf

Horses in Company, by Lucy Rees. The Crowood Press, 2017

 

Connection Training by Hannah Weston and Rachel Bedingfield https://connectiontraining.com/

 

Mood Matters: MHERA: An Innovative Assessment Approach to Animal Emotionality in the Treatment of Behaviour Problems, by Karin Pienaar. Paperback,November 2022