Empathy is the ability to identify with someone and share their feelings. Or, to put it another way, more colloquially, the ability to put oneself in someone else's shoes. Although, according to medical research carried out by the charity Harrison’s Fund, instead of shoes, it should be "paws." And it turns out that, according to their research, people are more capable of empathizing with canine tragedies than with those of our fellow humans.
The experiment carried out consisted of checking whether people were more likely to donate money to help DOG PEOPLE or humans. They printed two advertisements, one with the image of a child and the other with a dog. Both ads were accompanied by a single sentence: "Would you give £5 to save Harrison from a slow and painful death?"
The phrase, without a doubt, is quite extreme. But it showed that people who saw the advertisement were more likely to empathize with the dog than with the child. In fact, Harrison the dog received more donations.
In another study by Northeastern University, which also worked on the same premise, researchers developed fake news stories and distributed them to 256 newspapers that agreed to collaborate in the study.
The news story recounted the same event: an attack perpetrated by an unknown man with a baseball bat. The only thing that changed was the victim: in one, it was a one-year-old baby, in others a 30-year-old adult, and in others it was a puppy or a six-year-old adult dog.
The conclusions showed that the highest levels of empathy were registered with the stories of the baby and the dogs. While the lowest were for the attack on the thirty-year-old man. This research also proved revealing for the researchers, as they discovered that many people consider their dogs equal to some human members of their family (something that all DOG PARENTS already knew!).
Experts believe that we show greater empathy towards those we consider helpless, vulnerable, and unable to care for themselves. We tend to think that adults are always capable of protecting themselves. Whereas puppies and adult dogs (whom we actually see as big puppies) are completely defenseless and at the mercy of human behavior and decisions. That's why we tend to be more horrified and outraged by stories of abandoned, abused, or injured dogs than by similar stories starring our peers.
These results may surprise some, but for those of us who love pets, they are not new. As we share our lives with them and therefore know that they are beings of light, full of goodness, loyal, generous... DOG PEOPLE make us better people, more sensitive, more aware, more respectful. And all of that without the need for words. Just with gestures and glances. That's why our love for them moves mountains and makes us feel a greater affinity towards all of them, as a species, than towards other people. Which does not mean, of course, that we are not also capable of empathizing with other humans.
What do you think of these studies? We hope to read your comments on our social media. If you want to continue reading about other revealing studies or experiments, we invite you to learn about Pauleen Bennett, the anthrozoologist who demonstrated that our heart tunes into our dogs' hearts.