Chad recently shared an article that I’ve been thinking about for a few weeks. You can read the whole article here: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2024.0382
The bit that caught my imagination was this:
‘Positive animal welfare is defined as the animal flourishing through the experience of predominantly positive mental states and the development of competence and resilience’.
In humans, flourishing is a composite concept that typically includes positive emotions, life satisfaction or happiness, engagement, meaning and purpose or a sense of achievement, fulfilling and supportive social relationships and resilience [20,21]. Flourishing links to mental and physical wellbeing [22,23]. Other authors refer to the achievement of one’s full potential [24]. Animals may experience attributes linked to flourishing such as affective happiness, defined as a long-term state reflective of how an animal feels most of the time [25], flow as a state of complete absorption in an intrinsically rewarding activity [26], and supportive and fulfilling social relationships [27]. Thus, flourishing is an aspirational goal for scientists and animal caretakers to work towards understanding and enabling in animals. Research is needed to identify (likely species-specific) features, scientific methods and valid indicators of flourishing in animals.
The part I bolded in the quote above is what I’ve been pondering. It lead me to put together today’s video that shows what may be chimpanzees in a flow state.
What do you think? What flow states did I miss? What was your favorite to watch?
