Scientific tools for measuring positive emotional states in pigs are enabling a new generation of welfare assessments focused on flourishing rather than just suffering.
Positive affect measurement in pigs represents a paradigm shift from preventing suffering to actively facilitating flourishing. Traditional welfare assessment asks whether the animal is suffering. Positive affect assessment asks whether the animal is experiencing good life. Pigs in good welfare conditions not only avoid suffering but play more, explore more, make more optimistic judgements about ambiguous situations and show facial and physiological signs of positive emotional states. Incorporating positive affect measures into commercial welfare assessment creates incentives for providing conditions that generate positive experiences, fundamentally raising the ambition of welfare standards beyond minimum harm prevention.