If people are seeing humans and animals in competition, it might lead to them preferring to empathize with other humans. But if you don’t see that competition, it seems that people don’t want to engage in human empathy but they're a little bit more interested in animals.
KATIE BOHN: Stories about animals such as Harambe the gorilla and Cecil the lion often sweep the media as they pull at people’s heartstrings. But are people more likely to feel empathy for animals than humans?…
Empathy is the process of thinking about another living thing’s suffering and experiences as if they were their own. For example, not just having compassion for someone who is sad after an argument with a friend, but actually imagining and sharing in what that person is feeling…
A new Penn State study led by Daryl Cameron, associate professor of psychology and senior research associate at Rock Ethics Institute, found that the answer is complicated. The findings could have implications for how messaging to the public about issues like new environmental policies is framed, among others.
The researchers found that when people were asked to choose between empathizing with a human stranger or an animal — in this study, a koala bear — the participants were more likely to choose empathizing with a fellow human.
However, in a second pair of studies, the researchers had participants take part in two separate tasks: one in which they could choose whether or not they wanted to empathize with a person, and one in which they could choose whether or not they wanted to empathize with an animal. This time, people were more likely to choose empathy when faced with an animal than when faced with a person…
Cameron said the findings — recently published in a special issue on empathy in the Journal of Social Psychology — suggest that when people are deciding whether to engage in empathy, context matters.
“It’s possible that if people are seeing humans and animals in competition, it might lead to them preferring to empathize with other humans,” Cameron said. “But if you don’t see that competition, and the situation is just deciding whether to empathize with an animal one day and a human the other, it seems that people don’t want to engage in human empathy but they’re a little bit more interested in animals”…
While further studies will need to be done to see if these findings extend to other animals, Cameron said the results could have interesting implications. For example, if it’s true that people empathize less with animals if animal interests are pitted against human interests, that could affect how people feel about environmental policies.
“If people perceive choices about empathy in a way that makes it seem like we need to choose between humans or animals with no compromise — for example, choosing between using a parcel of land or conserving it for animals — they may be more likely to side with humans,” Cameron said. “But there may be ways in which those conversations could be tweaked to shape how people are thinking about managing their empathy”. SOURCE…
RELATED VIDEO: