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November 2, 2017 11:05 PM   Subscribe

Study Explains Why We Empathize More With Dogs Than [Adult] People

Study abstract:
This research examines whether people are more emotionally disturbed by reports of non-human animal than human suffering or abuse. Two hundred and fifty-six undergraduates at a major northeastern university were asked to indicate their degree of empathy for a brutally beaten human adult or child versus an adult dog or puppy, as described in a fictitious news report. We hypothesized that the vulnerability of victims—determined by their age and not species—would determine participants’ levels of distress and concern for them. The main effect for age but not for species was significant. We also found more empathy for victims who are human children, puppies, and fully-grown dogs than for victims who are adult humans. Age makes a difference for empathy toward human victims, but not for dog victims. In addition, female participants were significantly more empathic toward all victims than were their male counterparts.
posted by Johnny Wallflower (84 comments total) 19 users marked this as a favorite
 
(Article worth reading for the second dog picture alone)
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 11:07 PM on November 2, 2017 [12 favorites]


because people are largely horrible, deliberately, whilst dogs, creatures of perfection, could barely be even slightly mediocre if they tried for 100 years
posted by poffin boffin at 11:11 PM on November 2, 2017 [78 favorites]


And because, and of course I may be assuming too much here, animals don’t seem to have the insight that we’re capable of into what’s happening to them. My neighbor’s dog died recently and suddenly from eating some pesticides on a soccer field, and it breaks my heart to think about how he probably had no framework to rationalize the toxins that were tearing at his insides. That’s the connection with children: I assume that oncoming death is infinitely more terrifying when you don’t know its contours. Adults, even if they fear it, understand, and that is therefore less tragic.
posted by invitapriore at 11:17 PM on November 2, 2017 [13 favorites]


My take is that it is easier to empathize with pets in general because the consequences of emotional investment, or lack thereof, are marginal. Your pet will not judge you or demand an apology because it doesn't understand those concepts. Your dog will always love you and be excited to see you.
posted by Brocktoon at 11:17 PM on November 2, 2017 [3 favorites]


There's probably the least cognitive dissonance when adults' suffering is rationalised under the just-world hypothesis.
posted by Panthalassa at 12:02 AM on November 3, 2017 [13 favorites]


Study Explains Why We Undergraduates at a Major Northeastern University Empathize More With Dogs Than [Adult] People
Seriously, though, this immediately calls to mind studies of how white Americans perceive black children as older than they are and do not perceive black people to suffer as much from pain as other people, in particular because black people are believed to have led hard lives and are therefore tough.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 1:56 AM on November 3, 2017 [37 favorites]


Well, this is a no brainer. People are generally shits. Dogs are almost always wonderful, unless they have been mistreated by people.
posted by greenhornet at 2:17 AM on November 3, 2017 [11 favorites]


Earlier this year I walked down to the town square to pick up some books from the library, a distance of maybe half a mile at most. On my way back home I was set upon by a pack of dogs. Five of them that crossed a busy street for no other reason than to attack my skinny ass. I had nothing to protect myself with other than a canvas bag full of books. I faced them down for fifteen or twenty minutes, tried to remain calm. I tried to quietly walk away, but they advanced upon me each time. So I stood there until a couple of people came by and chased the bastards off.

Where were the owners of these beasts? Nowhere to be seen. What became of them? Well, I called animal control once I got home, and it turned out ac and the local cops were out looking for them because another person had been attacked by them. The woman who runs ac here is an utter flake, a pitbull advocate. She is the last person who should be in charge of animal control.

When we moved here, the more dangerous breeds of dogs were banned. Then, a few years ago, some piece of shit pol managed to pass a law that made it illegal for municipalities to ban such breeds. To whose benefit? Puppy mills. Easy money for white trash dog fighting fuckers.

Who advocates for those like us who simply wish to go about our business unmolested? No. Damned. Body.

Because most people drive, most people have to haul their asses up the road in a ton of machinery rather than walk to where they need to go. The view from the street is different.

Canines and humanity make for a toxic stew. You can keep those big brown eyes. I'm more concerned with the big yellow fangs that want to rip the flesh from my bones. I fear for my wife and others who can be attacked at any time, out of the blue.
posted by metagnathous at 2:31 AM on November 3, 2017 [20 favorites]


Canines and assholes make for a toxic stew. And please reread your comment replacing dogs with teenagers.
posted by hat_eater at 2:53 AM on November 3, 2017 [10 favorites]


hat_eater: Are you making an argument for neutering?
posted by biffa at 3:05 AM on November 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


And please reread your comment replacing dogs with teenagers.

That's about as informative as rereading it replacing "local" with "martian". Dogs aren't humans, and pretending that they are or ought to be treated as if they were is ridiculous.
posted by Dysk at 3:28 AM on November 3, 2017 [25 favorites]


Dogs are like people, socialization being the thin veneer holding back massive amounts of anger and rage. Someone very close to me paid a high price to learn that lesson about dogs, and that is something I'll never forget.

Sure, I'll pet a nice dog, but my default is far more prejudiced against them, than it used to be.
posted by MikeWarot at 4:46 AM on November 3, 2017 [3 favorites]


Dogs are like people, socialization being the thin veneer holding back massive amounts of anger and rage.

that's... a pretty drastic and dark generalisation regarding both dogs AND people
posted by halation at 4:53 AM on November 3, 2017 [14 favorites]


that's... a pretty drastic and dark generalisation regarding both dogs AND people

Sorry, but that's how I see it. My view of the state of civilization is also pretty bleak.... people have no idea just how hard it is to keep this massive Rube Goldberg machine that holds back the Dark Ages, up and running. < /derail> (thanks for letting me vent)
posted by MikeWarot at 5:07 AM on November 3, 2017 [4 favorites]


because people are largely horrible, deliberately, whilst dogs, creatures of perfection, could barely be even slightly mediocre if they tried for 100 years

Ah but people also feel sorry for abused cats. And cats while wonderful are completely and thoroughly evil. If a dog hurts you it is by accident and they will be sad about it. If a cat hurts you they just wonder if you got the message or if they have to do it again.
posted by srboisvert at 5:49 AM on November 3, 2017 [9 favorites]


Someone once said that dogs are too good for this world.
posted by DJZouke at 5:55 AM on November 3, 2017


ascribing a motive like 'evil' to a cat (or 'rage' to a dog) makes zero sense (and, frankly, encourages animal abuse, leading to more animals acting out)
posted by halation at 5:57 AM on November 3, 2017 [20 favorites]


I have lots of empathy for adult humans, it's not like I'm really lacking there, but even for me, it seems like the consequence of this is that, like, I spent literally all of Monday fretting over the fact that I wasn't able to explain to my cat why she was going to the vet that day and that she'd clearly been upset when I left her there even though she was going to be fine and is fine. I don't think you have to have a particular empathy problem with humans to still have animals hit you harder. I have a lot of trouble with "dark" shows and movies that're intended to show a lot of human horribleness, typically--yes, I know, I liked Hannibal, I can't explain why it's different--but I don't even *like* dogs and violence against dogs is a harder nope for me than violence against adult humans.

Having the emotional capacity to understand pain doesn't make the pain okay, but the absence of that capacity is something that is just viscerally difficult for me to handle. I don't think it's just vulnerability because, like, I think I'd have almost as much trouble with a grown tiger in pain as with a housecat.
posted by Sequence at 6:11 AM on November 3, 2017 [7 favorites]


metagnathous, I'm sorry that happened to you, and of course it's irresponsible for anyone to have human aggressive dogs and not keep them contained at all times, but the rest of what you're saying is kind of absurd. There is no real evidence that specific breeds are more dangerous than others, pit bull is not a breed but a vague and unevenly applied description that is heavily influenced by the class of people associated with them (e.g., 'white trash'), and puppy mills rarely breed the types of dogs the average person would identify as a pit bull.

And do you really think that nobody advocates other people's rights to walk down the street without being cornered by aggressive dogs?

I get that you're upset, and you have a right to be, and you seem to be vastly overestimating the risk that dogs pose based on a single, albeit terrifying, incident.
posted by ernielundquist at 6:34 AM on November 3, 2017 [44 favorites]


It's not a single incident, though. That's the thing. It's one in a long line of incidents that has gone on for years, A single incident would just one of those things that happens; the fact that it is a regular occurrence indicates that it's a trend, and one that the institutions that are supposed to deal with such issues simply don't.

I'm not a fearful person. I love animals. I believe that the amelioration of suffering is a noble goal. I'll pet any old doofus of a dog that approaches me. I think this dog issue is a symptom of a larger societal disease that isn't being addressed as much as it should be. People do suffer and die over this shit, because of some sentimental delusion.
posted by metagnathous at 7:28 AM on November 3, 2017 [2 favorites]


The worst a dog can do is maim or kill you. Only a human can doom your entire family to suffering and oppression for generations.
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:32 AM on November 3, 2017 [10 favorites]


Dogs need humans to become awful. Humans are just awful as their default.
posted by exolstice at 7:34 AM on November 3, 2017 [9 favorites]


Who is removing the human element from the issue? The linked article is about the interaction of humans and canines, as is my initial comment. It's not as if i'm complaining about wolves, or coyotes, or foxes, all of which I happen to love.

To compare the issue to something like gun control might be more accurate.
posted by metagnathous at 7:45 AM on November 3, 2017


There's something about humans' sympathy for dogs that opens up some really weird lines of conversation, like in this thread.

Saying that humans and dogs are a toxic combination is just odd. Humans and dogs have been living together for millennia. Most of the time, at least in our modern era, it's great. Sometimes it goes wrong. Like ... literally everything else in the world.

I've been bitten by a dog. It was a little asshole. I've had my dog attacked by other dogs, and it sucked (my dog was ok, but it still sucked). There are horrible stories of dogs mauling people. There are even more heartbreaking stories of people abusing dogs with psychopathic cruelty, just like there are heartbreaking stories of people doing that to each other.

But dogs are mostly great. They evolved to be our companions, so of course we mostly adore them. Humans are more complex and often harder to like, but we are mostly OK too.
posted by lunasol at 7:56 AM on November 3, 2017 [18 favorites]


That's fine up to to point that you're attacked in the street. Things take on a different look then. And, as I've said, I'm coming from this as a person who loves animals.
posted by metagnathous at 8:08 AM on November 3, 2017


I wonder what the results would be if it were dogs vs. cats instead of dogs vs. humans. I'm definitely a cat person and yet dogs evoke more empathy. Probably because having cats is frequently like being in an abusive relationship you can't leave.
posted by AFABulous at 8:09 AM on November 3, 2017 [5 favorites]


Dogs and humans evolved together in a symbiotic relationship. Domestic dogs evolved the way they are because of us, and we probably evolved the way we are because of them as well.

And we treat them like crap. We forcibly breed them, often to perpetuate deformities we find aesthetically pleasing, we control every aspect of their lives, and we expect them to understand us, while we barely even bother to try to understand them.

We kill them if they aren't sufficiently subservient, if they defend themselves, if we find their behaviors unpredictable, and most commonly, we kill them for not looking the way we want them to or literally just for taking up too much space, and then we just keep intentionally breeding more to fit our silly, superficial preferences.

It's actually shocking how rarely dogs seriously hurt people. Yes, dog bites are common from some perspectives, but if you take into account how many dog-human interactions are going on all the time, it's surprising that there aren't more.

Our human families are far far more likely to hurt or kill us than our dogs are, but we don't even consider preemptively killing them as a reasonable precaution.

Maybe, at some level, we recognize this, and our protective instincts take over when we're faced with an evocative story about a dog suffering.
posted by ernielundquist at 8:11 AM on November 3, 2017 [16 favorites]


Undergraduates have more empathy for a dog beaten by a baseball bat than an adult human?

There is some universe where a human could conceivably deserve it but there is no universe where a dog did.
posted by AFABulous at 8:22 AM on November 3, 2017 [9 favorites]


To compare the issue to something like gun control might be more accurate.

Jesus, no. Guns are inanimate objects designed purely for killing and destruction. There's no real comparison with a living thing that is almost completely shaped by its environment.
posted by zombieflanders at 8:36 AM on November 3, 2017 [7 favorites]


I love dogs. They are magical.

But as to the post:

My mother tells a story of being at a party in Virginia in the early 1970s. The party was held at the guest house of an estate outside of Charlottesville, VA. The guest house was rented by some of Mom's friends and from the patio they could see the Big House. A groundskeeper/landscaper and his family also lived on premises. The owners of the big house owned three large dogs--Mom described them as being somewhat like St. Bernards. They largely allowed to roam and ramble around the land.

During the party, one of the landscaper's young kids was playing in the yard when the dogs rounded the corner of the house. They startled him and he ran. The dogs gave chase and eventually overtook the boy. They mauled him. The party guests chased the dogs off and the boy was taken to the hospital in the ambulance. The dogs were taken back inside the big house.

Mom was haunted by this. Days later, she received a phone call from the party host who was letting everyone know that things were fine, that she was sure mom would be happy to know the dogs were fine. They were not seized or euthanized, thank goodness. Mom asked about the child. The host reported that she thought the child was fine. She didn't know, but she thought the whole thing was really the boy's own fault. He should have known better than to run from those dogs. And that they were trained to go after people that behave like criminals. And in her mind, a child running terrified from three enormous dogs constitued behaving like a criminal.

It's probably not necessary for me to tell you that both owners of the big house and the renters of the guest house were white people and the landscaper and his family were not. I hope it's not necessary for me to tell you that my mother, a public school teacher at the time, was horrified. When she tried to express this to the host of the party, the host said something to the effect of "everyone else was worried about the dogs? why do you have to be difficult and worry about the kid?" And this story was used as a "This is what racism looks like" anecdote around my house when I was a kid.

People can be awful. Awful people can be awful about their dogs, which sometimes makes their dogs kind of awful. I don't have any problem with people being more sympathetic toward dogs (again, people can be awful and have you seen a puppy?) What I do have a problem with people acting like empathy and understanding are such scant resources that they can only be spent on one thing at at time. It's awesome that we live in a world that people will stop to make sure that dog is not suffering. I want to believe we live in a world in which people will also recognize that the human being over there is also suffering and maybe needs their empathy and attention and righteous anger as well.
posted by thivaia at 8:37 AM on November 3, 2017 [36 favorites]


I don't think the study was a zero-sum game?
posted by AFABulous at 8:41 AM on November 3, 2017 [7 favorites]


It's cool with me if you like dogs, but what a lot of dog owners both good and bad do not seem to realize is that not everyone particularly likes dogs. I am one of them. Everyone piled on Mark Halperin for this tweet, but if I got on a plane and found that I was going to have to sit beside some stranger's dog for the entirety of the flight I'd be pissed, too. I don't care how good a boy or girl your bow tie-wearing dog is.

The inspiration from the study partly came about due to the attention a rather controversial case was getting on social media. A pit bull mauled a 4-year-old boy in Phoenix, Arizona back in 2014, leaving him with serious injuries that needed reconstructive surgery.

The dog was threatened with euthanasia, and a campaign was set up to save him from this fate. Within a few weeks, Mickey the dog’s Facebook page had more than 40,000 likes, whereas the page supporting the boy had around 500.


FFS
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:42 AM on November 3, 2017 [12 favorites]


lol the rest of this thread makes me like dogs even more and humans even less
posted by poffin boffin at 8:57 AM on November 3, 2017 [18 favorites]


Dogs need humans to become awful. Humans are just awful as their default.

"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and man." - Mark Twain (Pudd'nhead Wilson)
posted by The Bellman at 8:57 AM on November 3, 2017 [3 favorites]


As a dog walker, I am around strange, over-excited dogs off-leash (at dog parks) literally almost every day. I have done this for over 10 years. I have never been bitten, much less attacked. Just as a data point.
posted by The otter lady at 9:01 AM on November 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


Help me conceive one where a human would deserve it, because I'm not coming up with any

It's not the same as 'deserve,' but depending on how the study frames the questions (or writes the 'fake news reports' that were apparently used) it could potentially be assumed, by a study participant, that the human had attacked first, themselves, or made some form of threat or otherwise 'provoked' the attack. I wonder if this is part of why age seems to make a difference in the findings.
posted by halation at 9:06 AM on November 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


I think this post is an experiment to see whether Metafilter commenters empathize more with dogs than with people.
posted by librosegretti at 9:07 AM on November 3, 2017 [11 favorites]


Help me conceive one where a human would deserve it, because I'm not coming up with any.

It's sort of like original sin. Humans can choose to be kind or not. Dogs, largely, cannot choose - they just act. And yeah, some dogs are born mean or are mistreated/maltrained until they are. But humans can always choose. They know they have a choice. And with startling regularity - humans choose to be mean when they don't have to be.

I've met astonishingly few bad dogs in my life. Bad people abound.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 9:09 AM on November 3, 2017 [7 favorites]


The woman who runs ac here is an utter flake, a pitbull advocate.... Who advocates for those like us who simply wish to go about our business unmolested? No. Damned. Body.

Advocate for your own damn self? Sorry you think you're oppressed because the government doesn't want laws in place that have absolutely no basis in science.

And, yes, I realize i'm a real-time example of what the article is depicting. So let's just add "humans can have unfounded bias whereas dogs do not" to the list of reasons we sympathize more with a dog than with an adult.
posted by FirstMateKate at 9:15 AM on November 3, 2017 [6 favorites]


The inspiration for the study begs the question, "Are Facebook likes an accurate measure of empathy?" It seems likely that the dog's page got more attention because it was a controversial topic that attracted interest groups, whereas everyone is pretty much on the same page wishing the child hadn't been hurt.

This seems to be the case they're talking about. The dog was severely neglected and abused, and not sufficiently contained, especially with children present, so many people rightly blamed the dog's owners.

(Also, the study itself is paywalled and I don't trust IFLS or most other outlets to summarize it or evaluate the methodology for me.)
posted by ernielundquist at 9:15 AM on November 3, 2017 [10 favorites]


Working full time with homeless adults, I have Some Theories about why we so deeply lack empathy for suffering in fellow humans.

First off, we don't all lack empathy. As this study calls out, women have more than men. Previous research indicates that poor people give more money to poor people than richer people do. And in my anecdotal experience, African Americans are more likely to help out poor people than white people are (would love to see a study on this though).

So part of this is that the more privileged you have, the less empathy you have.

But my theory on why is, that having privileged causes a massive well of unconcous pain within the priveleged person. As first worlders, we all have some of this: on some level, we are constantly aware there people starving to death in other parts of the world, and the discord that causes internally is constantly nagging at us on some level. Looking at our neighbors here in the first world, we who for example have housing, see a homeless person, and it causes a huge amount of unconscious distress that we have no idea how to respond to. The more privilege we have, the more distressing the contrast is with the person who is suffering. As a lot of this is operating under the surface, we're not recruiting our logical thinking to trying to figure out how to relieve this person's suffering. We're just deeply aware that something is wrong and we feel helpless to stop it.

We evolved as communal creatures. Seeing humans suffering, especially when we can't easily identify a way to solve the problem quickly, seems to cause a kind of existential pain that most of us react to by completely shutting off our feelings about that other human.

It's the explanation that has formed in me after watching the rapid escalation of people living on the street over the last 5-10 years. In the case of the clients I work with, all of them are chronically ill with life-limiting diagnoses. Yet those of us who are housed almost all walk on by. Even those of us who give a dollar or donate to the food bank or whatnot are, for the most part, doing nothing to meaningfully change the systems causing the problem. It is completely overwhelming to think about and I think we are protecting ourselves from pain by trying not to think about it.
posted by latkes at 9:18 AM on November 3, 2017 [22 favorites]


Help me conceive one where a human would deserve it, because I'm not coming up with any.

With this idea, it's not so much that there is actually something one did that led them to deserve it, but that for other humans we've got these cognitive protections that kick in and lead us to frame things in ways that make us feel safe. If we assume that the target must have done something to deserve the attack, then that keeps us from being a potential target. A study like this would suggest that this effect doesn't show up with non-human targets. To the extent that the victim is like us, then it should happen. You could then take it and expand it to other studies to test that idea, sort of along the lines of what J.K. Seazer mentioned above.
posted by bizzyb at 9:25 AM on November 3, 2017 [2 favorites]




People like, and can relate to, dogs more easily than humans because dog behavior is understandable or at least guessable the majority of the time. We can project all of the nuances of emotion and motivation on to a dog, and because we have an understanding of those basics, they'll seldom betray our fantasy.

I can project motivations, feelings, and desires on to my fellow humans in the hopes they'll act predictably or in a way that validates my expectations, but it doesn't work. I expect too much, I hope for things that aren't going to happen. Humans may seem not much more complex on two legs than dogs on four, but there's a lot going on there.
posted by mikeh at 9:43 AM on November 3, 2017 [2 favorites]


So part of this is that the more privileged you have, the less empathy you have.

The order is often reversed; the richest men are sociopaths because there is no moral way to become a billionaire.
posted by AFABulous at 10:03 AM on November 3, 2017 [10 favorites]


Most privilege comes from what you're born into though.
posted by latkes at 10:08 AM on November 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


To tell you the truth, I've always felt I'm wired differently from most humans because I truly don't feel more empathy for dogs than adult humans. Sure I feel empathy when I see an ill-treated dog, but I don't feel it is at a different level from that I feel when I hear about women being raped in war zones or people being sold into slavery.
posted by peacheater at 10:23 AM on November 3, 2017 [4 favorites]


invitapriore: And because, and of course I may be assuming too much here, animals don’t seem to have the insight that we’re capable of into what’s happening to them.

This was my thought when our dog died, after several months of various parts of her body failing.

Dogs can feel. But they can't understand. And that pained confusion -- what is happening? why? did I do something wrong? -- is just about the most heartbreaking thing I've ever experienced.

Sorry, gotta go have a little cry now.
posted by bjrubble at 10:26 AM on November 3, 2017 [15 favorites]


I love dogs. They are magical.

No they are not. They are animals. As such, they are capable of great grace and great harm.
posted by metagnathous at 10:35 AM on November 3, 2017 [5 favorites]


We had a rogue pitbull in town once that kept making the paper. He had sharked up a list of lawless resolutes and was rampaging with them through the town taking out cats and possums and weaker dogs for a period of a few weeks 'til at last he was netted and dispatched. Once I was driving out to I think the airport or somewhere? On a lonely road with no cars all orangelit from the arc sodium lights and I saw this guy and two of his deputies coming down the, like, onramp thing for this road going hell for leather. They kept pace and went alongside me for a block or so, and it was just about the best, most thrilling thing I've ever seen. Dogs left to themselves revert back to wolfish nobility again, and it's uplifting to see that from the refuge of your speeding car.

Making an ignoble thing like a dog out of a glorious thing like a coyote or a wolf probably made sense at the beginning because they had jobs to do and were useful. It's a bad idea to keep breeding them at this point, though. We don't have anything useful for them to do anymore, and we can't let them run like they're meant to run. They're getting as fat and listless and miserable on rendered feedcorn as we are. Plus if the new tax bill passes and all the infrastructure breaks down, they'll form packs and tear us limb from limb, and the richies will watch and chortle over their port and cheese.
posted by Don Pepino at 10:39 AM on November 3, 2017


Dogs can feel. But they can't understand.

This honestly stresses me out so much. I have a rescue pit, Beetle, who is the biggest chicken I've ever met. She gets easily stressed out, and it really bothers me thinking that she's stressed, but might not know that I know, and am doing things to keep her safe. But! I take solace in knowing that she does love me, and knows that I love her.


I love dogs. They are magical.
No they are not. They are animals. As such, they are capable of great grace and great harm.
posted by metagnathous at 1:35 PM on November 3 [1 favorite +] [!]


Um, this might surprise you, but we're all intelligent enough here to know that magic isn't actually real. I'm not really sure what the point of your comment was, other than parade-shitting.
posted by FirstMateKate at 10:50 AM on November 3, 2017 [22 favorites]


I should clarify that I'm not crazy about people, either.
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:17 AM on November 3, 2017


I don't like to see cruelty to cats, dogs, rabbits, indeed any animal. Part of it is because animals don't have the capacity to comprehend what is done to them, and a large part is because people who are cruel to animals are not good people. Someone who goes after the vulnerable - animals, children, the elderly - and deliberately abuses them, is a bad person who has something wrong with them. Cruelty to the smaller and weaker is one of the signs of a sociopath.

That said, I am a cat person, though I do love some dogs. (I think of dogs the same way I think of kids - I like to fuss over them, spoil them, and give them back to their parents when it's time to do the hard work. I'm a doggie grandma or cool aunt, in other words.) For the most part, cats are more private than dogs - packs of rogue cats don't go after kids, for instance. Unless you're Amy Schumer, there's no such thing as a cat park with loose cats running wild and jumping on people. Non-cat-people find it easier to avoid contact with random cats.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 11:19 AM on November 3, 2017 [2 favorites]


Can we all agree that we should have empathy for the dog in the pumpkin hat?
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:44 AM on November 3, 2017 [2 favorites]


having spent flights next to humans, spending a flight next to a dog instead would be much nicer
posted by idiopath at 11:58 AM on November 3, 2017 [2 favorites]


The general idea as to why we feel this way towards dogs, according to the research, is that we see them as having the same degree of vulnerability as kids; in other words, they are unable to protect themselves.

Yeah, I think breeding for neoteny is a big part of this. Most domestic dogs have about the same emotional and social maturity as juvenile wolves; they’re in the junior/child role in the family pack. Temperament domestication has made it so that most dog breeds don’t challenge this when they’re adults, and one of the big difficulties with wolf dogs or other high drive + high independence working dogs is that when they hit physical maturity they start to really want to go off and form their own families which they’ll be the head of in ways that most breeds do not. “Fur babies” is a cloying way of talking about this, but I think people who use it or who think that way are not incorrect about the development of the animals they’re talking about. It’s not surprising that people unconsciously class pet dogs as “child”, because to an extent it’s true. And yes, the inhumanity of seeing dogs as more worthy of that status than real human children is fucked up.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 12:04 PM on November 3, 2017 [7 favorites]


I'm not really sure what the point of your comment was, other than parade-shitting.

Which, by the way, dogs are great at.
posted by The Bellman at 12:09 PM on November 3, 2017 [5 favorites]


"...the inhumanity of seeing dogs as more worthy of that status than real human children is fucked up."
Species partisanship in general is fucked up. The suffering of any animal, humans included, is terrible, and taking an animal's dignity away is terrible. But, you know, what are you gonna do, become a vegan? Let the stray wander off and starve? NOT put the dog in the pumpkin hat that it does not mind at all and that it looks adorable in?

Sucks to be a weed species.
posted by Don Pepino at 12:16 PM on November 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


My first thought was the Mac Hall comic: "Therefore people are scum, pay up." I suppose I am in a minority, but I feel that we should value humans over dogs. Dogs are generally enjoyable, but they are not rational creatures. I cannot imagine being a dog and you cannot either. You can imagine being a human in a dog body, but not what it is to be a dog. I value the ability or the potential to create or enjoy or think more than I do the ability to look cute. People have such amazing potential. Dogs have the potential to look at you as if they love you. Which is great, but it is not the same.

I guess I am heartened by the fact that people valued the life of a child over that of a dog. I was honestly convinced of the opposite.
posted by Hactar at 2:10 PM on November 3, 2017


Are we sure this isn't a WEIRD study? Do people from all cultures show as much empathy for dogs (or children) as western college students do?
posted by clawsoon at 2:12 PM on November 3, 2017 [3 favorites]


> she does love me

Are dogs known to go through depression like humans?

It is very possible for dogs to become depressed. After 9/11 it was reported that many of the search and rescue dogs were suffering from depression-like symptoms because they could never find any survivors, only bodies. Their handlers would stage “fake” finds so that the dogs would cheer up and keep searching.


Oh no.
posted by figurant at 2:17 PM on November 3, 2017 [2 favorites]


I know someone who will say that people who are cruel to animals should be given the death penalty. She is not being hyperbolic. She feeds stray animals, but not the homeless humans in her vicinity who she tends to regard as basically vermin. I find this to be pretty fucked up, obviously, and it's among the reasons I no longer talk to her.

There's something to be said for the basic innocence of animals, I guess, but I think humans are capable of wide range of empathetic/sociopathic behavior and while I imagine someone generally predisposed to empathy probably feels for both dog and human alike, clearly people are also capable of getting those knobs twisted in very different ways (e.g., the dog fighting enthusiast who also gives to the poor).

On a societal level there's definitely an ingrained sense that a certain amount of suffering is just endemic to the world. Compound that with the American notion of bootstraps and it's not hard to see how people look past the homeless, or don't bother to worry about whether that pair of new shoes was assembled with child labor. Capitalism makes it nigh on impossible to live by the kind of principles one might want to without going to pretty crazy lengths at every turn; I likely have almost no way of knowing the labor practices behind hundreds of products on a local store's shelf. Hell, I almost can't avoid the Koch brothers and still wipe my ass.
posted by axiom at 2:22 PM on November 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


And yes, the inhumanity of seeing dogs as more worthy of that status than real human children is fucked up.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 3:04 PM on November 3


Can you show me where this is real? Because the article is about how people empathize more with dogs over adults, not other children.
posted by FirstMateKate at 2:37 PM on November 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


"The dog was threatened with euthanasia, and a campaign was set up to save him from this fate. Within a few weeks, Mickey the dog’s Facebook page had more than 40,000 likes, whereas the page supporting the boy had around 500."

This is one of the things I ponder, so I have a couple more examples. The first laws to prevent abuse of dogs were proposed in 1800 in the UK (and enacted into law by 1810). The first law to limit abuse of children wasn't introduced until 1908. The RSPCA was founded in 1824; the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (no royal sponsor!) in 1881. The US ASPCA was founded in 1866; the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (first in the US) in 1874. In both cases the child protection -- which was fought tooth and nail -- was modeled on the much more socially accepted animal protection. Pets before children.

In the UK, women gained the right to divorce their husbands for abuse in 1878 (although not to prosecute the abuse criminally). In the US, laws were beginning in the 1870s outlawing spousal abuse, but not until 1920 was wife-beating illegal nationally. In the US, the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence wasn't founded until 1978. So, again, pets before women.

So there's a long history of abuse of pets (and other animals) becoming a society-wide issue deserving of attention long before protecting children or women from abuse is considered legitimate or viable.

Another example, I was angry, but not surprised, when Michael Vick's NFL career was interrupted because he was seen as too toxic to hire after he was convicted of dogfighting in 2007, and the howls of outrage from across the country and from NFL fans talking about how he was a role model and had let people down and they wouldn't let their children watch him and so on ... while a number of wife-beaters continued to play with no outrage or consequences. Even now, if you get caught on tape or arrested for DV, you'll get a small penalty for domestic violence, but teams largely just don't care. But, again, I wasn't surprised because I'm a long-time observer of American attitudes towards child/spousal abuse vs. animal abuse, and people always, always, always get more outraged by animal abuse, and there are far more likely to be consequences when it's an animal being abused than when it's a person.

In fact, a lot of local news outlets will devote far more airtime or column inches to a dog shot by a cop than a person shot by a cop. Cop spokesmen spend way, way, way less time defending cops who shot dogs and are more likely to call it an accident or unfortunate (or tacitly admit the cop did a bad thing), than they do defending cops who shot children; the children become threatening, dangerous, drug- or weapon-carrying, etc., in the cop spox explanation, and it's never the cop doing bad policing and they won't even say it was an accident -- it has to be the child's FAULT that they got shot. Shooting a dog is a "terrible tragedy." Shooting a child is "good policework."
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 2:37 PM on November 3, 2017 [25 favorites]


Great comment, Eyebrows.

But dogs are mostly great. They evolved to be our companions, so of course we mostly adore them. Humans are more complex and often harder to like, but we are mostly OK too.

There's a breath of sanity, for which I thank you, mikeh.

I know someone who will say that people who are cruel to animals should be given the death penalty. She is not being hyperbolic.


And this is the exact opposite of being sane about animals.

I don't see a refusal to say that dogs are 'magic' is thread shitting. That goes into as much hyperbole as saying that dogs are part of a 'toxic stew' with humans.

There are good dogs, and bad dogs, and bad dogs that would be good dogs if they were trained to have manners and not treated like they were human. I see so many spoiled dogs today. Mine could certainly have better manners, but she's kept in my yard or on a leash in public. At least she's not aggressive. I wouldn't HAVE an aggressive dog.

To say that there are no bad dogs (or bad horses) is to refuse to see the reality of a problem. Some dogs are bred to be aggressive. Some literally cannot be trained to be safe around people. Some have a screw loose--whether it's chemistry or a tumor or a past trauma that cannot be safely overcome--and in all those cases, the right thing, the humane thing, is to put them down. And then you go out and find a normal dog in the pound, one that needs a home, and you give them as much love, and care, and training as you possibly can. Because those are the good dogs, Brent.

There is a line that runs from those people who hate, fear, or abuse dogs, to those who actively dislike them, through those who are indifferent, into a middle of the road, realistic world-view in which most dogs (and most people) are benevolent beings, but that shades into those people who would rather see a human badly bitten than an animal humanely euthanized, and those who believe that dogs are incapable of doing wrong or are 'magical' and full of woo. Those are generally the ones that don't bother to correct or train their dogs, and then there are problems. I don't want to hang out with people at either end of the spectrum.
posted by BlueHorse at 2:48 PM on November 3, 2017 [3 favorites]


The US ASPCA was founded in 1866; the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (first in the US) in 1874.

Weirder even, Henry Bergh of the ASPCA investigated the pivotal child abuse case, based on the argument that the girl being abused was "a little animal, surely." (CW: Child abuse.)
posted by ernielundquist at 3:05 PM on November 3, 2017 [7 favorites]


I grew up around dogs that didn't stay puppy-like. Some of them had a notion that they were hunters, and that children were potential prey. They weren't leashed. That shaped my view of dogs, I've noticed, a little differently from people who grew up in cities where all dogs were leashed and the ones who were dangerous weren't allowed. When you have a dog circling around to your back every day when you're coming home from school, moving in closer when it sees you're not looking back, waiting for its opportunity, you don't think, "Oh, what a dear, innocent creature!" Instead, you put it in the same category as other predators. Watch out for cougars. Watch out for bears. Watch out for dogs.
posted by clawsoon at 3:07 PM on November 3, 2017 [3 favorites]


I love dogs. They are magical.

No they are not. They are animals. As such, they are capable of great grace and great harm.


Being capable of both beauty and harm is literally one of the defining characteristics of all magic in narratives throughout history.

Dogs can feel. But they can't understand. And that pained confusion -- what is happening? why? did I do something wrong? -- is just about the most heartbreaking thing I've ever experienced.

And it's not even their own death/pain they can't understand. My mother's second dog was very evidently traumatized by witnessing the first dog's (natural, but very sudden and unpleasant) death. She will not, even 3 years later, enter the room where it happened; it took her months to allow petting or walks. She remains tenfold more fearful and anxious than previously.

This isn't to say that I have substantially more *empathy* for the dog than for a grieving/traumatized adult human. But I do find the dog's situation more *sympathetic*, specifically because a grieving human can say, "I am grieving, I am traumatized" and understand what is happening to them, and the dog (as far as we know) cannot.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 3:15 PM on November 3, 2017 [2 favorites]


All this to say I find the conflation of "emotional response" with "empathy" to be a bit sloppy. Empathy is a specific thing. And it seems like we're all just kind of assuming that emotional response is a 1:1 relationship with how much a thing is valued or identified with, and I'm not sure that's a complete given. Emotions are weird.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 3:18 PM on November 3, 2017


And it's not even their own death/pain they can't understand. My mother's second dog was very evidently traumatized by witnessing the first dog's (natural, but very sudden and unpleasant) death. She will not, even 3 years later, enter the room where it happened; it took her months to allow petting or walks. She remains tenfold more fearful and anxious than previously.

Oh my lord yes, I've watched this happen a few times throughout my life and it may be even more painful than the other case. The dog I mentioned above was my own dog's best dog friend ever, and a few days after I was walking my dog outside and she saw the neighbor walk through and she ran up to him and looked very concerned and bustled around and barked at him for a while, in a way that seemed confused and definitely not either menacing or angry. She's never done that with him, and they're pretty familiar with each other. It was strange, and sad.
posted by invitapriore at 3:40 PM on November 3, 2017


Dogs--most dogs, at least--are vulnerable and trusting in a way that adult humans are not. They can't effectively protect themselves, because they are so open to us. There is something peculiarly horrible about a creature who relies so heavily on our kindness and generosity being hurt. Perhaps especially for those of us who are not particularly trusting ourselves.

I grew up in a neighborhood where virtually all the dogs were underfed strays or viciously abused "guard dogs" on a chain. It made me wary of them for a very long time. But, hey, it turns out that the average dog living in a home doesn't behave like that.
posted by praemunire at 3:52 PM on November 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


Americans - in general - hate the poor, and they hate the homeless, and they hate the less fortunate. Anything that can be spun as being a failure of the person rather than the oppression of an unjust society is hammered home by the culture in the US. So I'm unsurprised that in a survey of college-aged kids who are able to attend college, a lot of folks have more empathy for a pet than for an adult.

However, that second dog picture is sheer brilliance. The first dog pic is pretty dead-from-cute adorable as well.
posted by rmd1023 at 4:31 PM on November 3, 2017 [2 favorites]


Our next-door neighbors are professional dog trainers. They can work wonders even with really troubled dogs. At the same time, they get really frustrated by the idea that any dog can be rehabilitated. Recently, they advised a family that had adopted a german shepherd from a local shelter to return it. The parents had called for advice about training the dog, but the dog had food-guarding and aggressive behaviors that were dangerous to children in the house. The family did take the dog back to the shelter, but a few days later our neighbors saw it being offered at an adoption event at a local pet store. Not long after that, they got another call from a family--with no knowledge of the first family--that had adopted the dog and were calling for advice and help with its behaviors. The last I heard, this dog had been adopted out four times in a matter of weeks. Our neighbors are people who are willing to work incredibly hard to help families and their dogs, but they're also willing to recognize that, as heartbreaking as it is, there are some dogs that can't be rehabilitated to live safely in a family setting. It's not the dogs' faults: they have no control over their own breeding, or over how they're treated. But I think it's a pragmatic reality, and I appreciate that our neighbors (who have been "mentoring" our ten-year-old in his dog-training efforts since he was 3 or 4) are willing to wrestle with that line rather than choosing a simple one-size-fits-all answer, or making promises to clients that they can't keep.

I don't know that I'd say I empathize more with animals than people. I do know that after a major catastrophe like a hurricane, I don't want to read reports about the animals who are left behind, or animal deaths. I think it's because, as others have said, pets of all kinds have no understanding of events or ability to help themselves in meaningful ways. Of course, I also don't want to see photos of dead people or read detailed descriptions of any individuals suffering and death. I am one of those people who worries more about dogs possibly being killed in disaster movies than about characters who are human, even the ones that aren't in crowd scenes.
posted by Orlop at 8:05 PM on November 3, 2017 [7 favorites]


I have more empathy towards animals than humans in the way this study suggests - however I also eat animals. And pigs are more intelligent than dogs. I try to buy only ethically sourced meat but I often fail at even doing that.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that there's no logic to these feelings and a huge amount of denial that goes on in thinking about and loving animals. I don't think rational explanations (such as dogs not understanding what's going on when theyre hurt) make sense in this context. I think we're having an emotional gut response to (only some) animals being hurt in (only some) ways and trying to justify it through logic rather than logically deciding for certain reasons to care more about animal suffering than human suffering.

I also think for me the main takeaway from this study is that women have so much more empathy then men on average - so can we please go ahead and rule the world already? K thanks bye.
posted by hazyjane at 11:35 PM on November 3, 2017 [4 favorites]


I don’t want to presume too much but the people in here calling it fucked up that we’d maybe feel a bit more charitable towards dogs than people have maybe not suffered so much at the hands of humans? No dog would do to me what my nominal kin have done. I’ll owe them that, and their love, forever.
posted by invitapriore at 12:11 AM on November 4, 2017 [3 favorites]


remember that Seinfeld episode where Elaine has a meltdown because everybody in the world can't stop mooning over The English Patient and she just. doesn't. get it? this is kind of what i imagine it's like to be a non-dog person
posted by Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam at 12:29 AM on November 4, 2017 [3 favorites]


Just to clarify: I don't literally think dogs are magical. I tend to use that adjective, more or less, as synonymous with "great," in my common parlance. I wrote that line it as disclaimer before telling a story about dogs being really not great. I am actually a cat person, if you want to get technical about it.
posted by thivaia at 5:57 AM on November 4, 2017


(I have no idea whether cats are magical. They're definitely assholes.)
posted by thivaia at 5:59 AM on November 4, 2017


invitapriore: I don’t want to presume too much but the people in here calling it fucked up that we’d maybe feel a bit more charitable towards dogs than people have maybe not suffered so much at the hands of humans? No dog would do to me what my nominal kin have done.

I agree about impact of early experience. There were dogs in my childhood who were more threatening than any of the people, so it's not surprising that my and your relative views of dogs vs people would be different. And that's okay, I think.
posted by clawsoon at 6:25 AM on November 4, 2017 [2 favorites]


I don't empathise with dogs at all and I really cannot stand animal lovers who put animals above people. They dislike people because they are intolerant and assume a narrative.

At work we have some of the cliquiest and cruelest people but as soon as a dog comes into the office they suddenly assume the role of a nice, loving, doting person. I just think 'why can't you be like this with humans???!' They just succumb to their silly narratives.
posted by ihaveyourfoot at 6:01 AM on November 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


metagnathous - I'm with you 99%. I walk through the city declaiming, "Look, a poorly trained dog! You know, you just never see that now-a-days!"

However, if I could wave a wand to disappear all the dogs I wouldn't, for the sole reason that I, a large-ish dude, generally feel comfortable strolling at midnight or at any time I please, and it it is unjust that a woman likely wouldn't. And if it takes a dog at her side to achieve parity there, then goddamn it, fine, dogs can exist.

Ha-ha, I have also tried comparing dog-walkers to open-carry people, but this has been met with incomprehension, so I stopped. Just wanted you to know that you're not alone.
posted by turkeybrain at 10:32 AM on November 6, 2017


People walking dogs they can barely control on leash is the thing that makes me feel uncomfortable and unsafe walking around my suburban neighbourhood at night, and I am a woman.
posted by Dysk at 11:15 AM on November 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


Do the same folks who get upset at people valuing dogs on the same level of people really not understand the irony of valuing a living animal that demonstrates awareness of their environment and social cues with either inanimate objects designed exclusively for destroying lives and property, or that of disposable objects that deserve to be destroyed by factors not just outside of their control, but completely outside their comprehension?

I mean, it's not just me, right?
posted by zombieflanders at 12:10 PM on November 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


I can't tell much difference between valuing the fetal stage of human development over all the other stages and hating the suffering of a select chordate pet animal over the suffering of all other chordate animals or all chordate pet animals or just humans or just the one wrong kind of chordate pet animal. Can the organism feel pain? Then it is worthy of friendly, considerate treatment. Its suffering is abhorrent. Molluscs, too. And spiders.

Off topic: I wish "doggo" and "kiddo" had never been invented. They hurts my ears... inside my brain.
posted by Don Pepino at 1:04 PM on November 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


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