People are more compassionate towards dogs than humans, says study

At times dog owners love their four-legged friends so much that they treat them like they would a child and they do even say they prefer them to some friends and family. According to new research, this is the scientific reason, a study published in the journal Society and Animals suggested that people are more empathetic towards dogs than fellow humans.


In an experiment, 240 students were presented with fake newspaper clippings of a police report either about an attack on a person, or on a dog. In the fake report, the victim was attacked with a baseball bat by an unknown assailant, and was left unconscious with one broken leg and multiple lacerations. Participants were each given the same report with the victim being either a one-year-old baby, a 30-year-old adult, a puppy,or a six-year-old dog. Then they were asked about how they felt using questions to measure their levels of empathy.


The team hypothesized that the vulnerability of the victims - determined by age, rather than species - would be the most important factor in participants' levels of distress and concern. In fact, empathy levels for the puppy, older dog, and baby human were on similar levels, while the adult person came last. The adult dog only received lower scores of empathy when compared to the infant human victim.


The researchers said, "Subjects did not view their dogs as animals, but rather as 'fur babies,' or family members alongside human children.”


Professor Bridget Waller said, “The research tells us that the facial expressions are probably responsive to humans not just to other dogs. The research tells us something about how domestication has shaped [dogs], and that it has changed them in order to be more communicative with humans, in a sense."