Empathy is the ability to identify with someone and share their feelings. Or, put more colloquially, the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. Although, according to medical research conducted by the charity Harrison’s Fund, it would be more accurate to say “in their paws.” According to their research, people are able to empathize more with canine tragedies than with those of their fellow human beings.
The experiment consisted of finding out whether people were more likely to donate money to help ARISTOPERROS or humans. To do this, they printed two advertisements, one featuring an image of a child and the other a dog. Both advertisements were accompanied by a single sentence: “Would you give £5 to save Harrison from a slow and painful death?”.
The sentence is undoubtedly quite extreme. But it showed that people who saw the advertisement were more likely to sympathize with the dog than with the child. In fact, the dog Harrison received more donations.
In another study by Northeastern University, which also explored the same premise, researchers developed fake news stories and distributed them through 256 newspapers that agreed to participate in the study.
The story described the same incident: an attack carried out by an unknown man with a baseball bat. The only thing that changed was the victim: in one version, it was a one-year-old baby; in others, a 30-year-old adult, a puppy, or a six-year-old adult dog.
The findings showed that the highest levels of empathy were recorded for the stories about the baby and the dogs. The lowest levels were recorded in response to the attack on the 30-year-old man. This research was also revealing for the investigators, as they discovered that many people consider their dogs equal to some human members of their family (something all ARISTOPADRES already knew!).
Experts believe that we show greater empathy toward those we consider powerless, vulnerable, and unable to care for themselves. We tend to think that adults are always capable of protecting themselves. Puppies and adult dogs, meanwhile (whom we actually see as large puppies), are completely helpless and at the mercy of human behavior and decisions. That is why we tend to feel more horrified and outraged by stories of dogs that have been abandoned, abused, or injured than by similar stories involving our fellow humans.
These results may surprise some people, but they are nothing new to those of us who love pets. We share our lives with them and therefore know that they are beings of light, full of kindness, loyalty, and generosity… ARISTOPERROS make us better people: more sensitive, more aware, and more respectful. And all that without the need for words. Only through gestures and looks. That is why our love for them moves mountains and makes us feel a greater affinity with all of them as a species than with other people. This does not mean, of course, that we are not also capable of empathizing with other humans.
What do you think of these studies? We look forward to reading your comments on our social media. If you would like to keep reading about other revealing studies or experiments, we invite you to learn about Pauleen Bennett, the anthrozoologist who demonstrated that our hearts are in tune with those of our dogs.