According to two recent studies, people are more likely to feel disturbed and upset when they see a dog suffering than other people they might see suffering.
They found that more people were likely to give money to help the dog than a person.
In the second study, that was conducted by researchers in Boston at Northeastern University, 256 participants were asked to read a fictitious news story about an assault where either a dog or a person was described as having been beaten up.
The participants had been given one out of 4 different news reports, each version had a different victim. The versions were: a 1 year old child, a 30 year old adult, a puppy, and a 6 year old dog.
The results from that study have been published in the journal Society & Animals and they indicate that the participants had felt more empathy for the dogs, and the infant, over the 30 year old adult.
When we see other adults being victimized, this research suggests that we are less likely to feel distressed about it, than we would if we had seen a child or dog being victimized. Why might that be? Researchers have suggested that because we see the dogs or children as being more helpless, that this is why we might feel a lack of empathy for an adult victim. We see adults and assume that they should be capable of protecting themselves and we don't assume the same when looking at dogs or children.
Is empathy important? Might society have a problem with a decline in that area?
Another previous study from a few years ago, by the University of Michigan, found that college students had less empathy than previous decades. They were seen to have a decline of about 40 percent compared to college students in the 80s and 90s. Researchers said that they found the biggest drop came after 2000.
When we are empathetic towards others, we try to put ourselves into their shoes and experience their emotions or their own hardships and conflicts, rather than just simply trying to understand what's going on for them. It's described by researchers as being a point of perception where you try to abandon your own perspective and adopt the vantage point of another. Maybe it might do us a little good to pay a little more attention toward fostering it in our own lives.
Pics:
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Sources:
http://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/a13437670/people-more-empathetic-to-dogs-than-other-humans/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/02/humans-love-dogs-people-study/
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/humans-empathy-dogs-more-people-study-animals-pets-a8033056.html
http://ns.umich.edu/new/releases/7724-empathy-college-students-don-t-have-as-much-as-they-used-to
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/douglas-labier/americas-continuing-empat_b_637718.html