17. Social Learning and Emotional Bonds: What We Can Learn from Humans and Animals

Connection Therapy

This week, Brenda brings listeners into a research-based episode to explore the fascinating concept of social learning and emotional transference, touching on the profound ways these ideas shape our understanding of human and animal behavior.

Social learning—learning through observation—goes beyond simple imitation. It's about how we absorb emotions, behaviors, and intentions from those around us. Through Brenda’s discussion, she takes a closer look at how infants can even recognize the reliability of adults, how emotions are transferred among animals and humans, and how these insights open up new questions about emotional bonds and relationships.

This research is a powerful reminder of the importance of practices like play intervention therapy and animal-assisted therapy. Play therapy allows children to express their emotions in a safe, controlled environment, helping them learn to identify their feelings, understand the behaviors of others, and develop crucial social and emotional skills.

Animal-assisted therapy, on the other hand, taps into the deep, universal bond between animals and humans. Animals can help children recognize and respond to emotional cues, teaching empathy, emotional regulation, and connection in ways that words alone often can’t.

As Brenda brings listeners into these ideas, she leaves us with bigger questions: What are we truly picking up from others? How do we interpret the emotional signals and behaviors we see? Through understanding social learning and emotional transference, we can become more mindful of our actions, emotions, and how others are learning from us.

And with animal-assisted therapy, there is so much more to uncover about how these emotional connections can shape healing, growth, and deeper understanding in therapeutic settings.

References Mentioned in this Episode:

Aronson, E. (2004). The Social animal (9th ed.). Worth Publishers.

Lingiardi, V. & McWilliams, N., (Eds.). (2017). Psychodynamic diagnostic manual (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.

Poulin-Dubois, D., & Brosseau-Liard, P. (2016). The Developmental Origins of Selective Social Learning. Current directions in psychological science, 25(1), 60–64. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721415613962

Trösch, M., Pellon, S., Cuzol, F. et al. Horses feel emotions when they watch positive and negative horse–human interactions in a video and transpose what they saw to real life. Anim Cogn 23, 643–653 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-020-01369-0