Actually the rats in the empathy test were relative strangers: "Rats were housed in pairs for 2 weeks before the start of testing."
Whilst I have seen a number of examples of out-of-group hostility, I have also seen a number of out-of-group acceptance as well. The former, most prominently, seems to be about male rats establishing their respective position in mischief leadership. I have had two cases where I've had to keep the boys separate from each other as they simply weren't getting along. The females of the species seem to mix it up pretty well.
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Date: 2012-12-24 09:38 pm (UTC)Whilst I have seen a number of examples of out-of-group hostility, I have also seen a number of out-of-group acceptance as well. The former, most prominently, seems to be about male rats establishing their respective position in mischief leadership. I have had two cases where I've had to keep the boys separate from each other as they simply weren't getting along. The females of the species seem to mix it up pretty well.