Originally published 2017-11-15.
Do people really care more about dogs than about other people? A well-known study from Northeastern University suggests the answer is "partly, and it depends who the human is". When college students read about a violent attack, they felt more empathy for a puppy or an adult dog than for an adult man. But a human baby drew the most empathy of all. The result says less about loving dogs over people and more about how strongly we respond to victims we see as helpless.
Below is what the researchers did, what they found, a charity campaign that showed a similar pattern in real life, and why it matters for anyone who has ever wondered why a sad animal story hits harder than the evening news.
The experiment: four versions of one news story
Sociologists Jack Levin and Arnold Arluke of Northeastern University in Boston, working with Leslie Irvine, asked 240 undergraduate students to read a short, made-up newspaper report about a brutal beating. Each student saw only one version. The wording was the same in every case except for the victim, who was one of four:
- a one-year-old baby,
- a man in his thirties,
- a puppy,
- a six-year-old dog.
Afterwards the students filled in an emotional response questionnaire. Six of its items (feeling sympathetic, softhearted, warm, compassionate, tender and moved) were added together to give an empathy score. Because each person read only one story, nobody was asked to choose between a dog and a human directly, which makes the comparison more honest than a simple poll.
The findings were first presented at the American Sociological Association meeting in 2013 and later published in full in the journal Society & Animals in 2017, under the title "Are People More Disturbed by Dog or Human Suffering?"
What the students felt
The adult man came last. Students who read about the baby, the puppy or the adult dog all reported significantly more empathy than those who read about the adult human. The baby scored highest. The puppy and the baby were close, and the adult dog was outscored only by the baby.
Two other details are often left out of the headlines:
- Age mattered for humans but hardly for dogs. The researchers expected younger victims to win more sympathy in both species. That held for people, but the six-year-old dog was treated almost like the puppy.
- Women reported more empathy than men for every type of victim, human or animal.
Why a dog can outrank an adult in our sympathy
The authors' explanation centres on vulnerability. Babies and puppies are obviously defenceless. Adult dogs, the researchers suggested, are seen in a similar way: dependent on people, unable to speak for themselves, and innocent of whatever led to the attack. An adult man, by contrast, is assumed to be able to defend himself, leave a dangerous situation or even share some responsibility. Levin also pointed out that many owners think of their dogs as family members with human-like feelings, so readers may picture a dog victim as "one of us" rather than as an animal.
The baby still came out on top, which the authors linked to similarity: a human infant is both completely vulnerable and recognisably like ourselves.
Seen this way, the study is not about species at all. It is about how quickly we judge whether a victim "could have done something". That judgement is often unfair to adult human victims of violence, who are no less hurt because they are grown up.
A charity that tested it with real money
A British medical charity ran into the same pattern outside the lab. Harrison's Fund, which funds research into Duchenne muscular dystrophy, was set up by Alex Smith, whose son Harrison has the condition. In January 2015 it ran two near-identical web adverts on MSN asking readers for £5 to stop Harrison from dying slowly and painfully. One showed a photo of the boy; the other showed a dog.
According to Third Sector, the dog version received about twice as many clicks. The charity turned that into a campaign called "I wish my son was a dog", including a newspaper ad whose small print explained that the dog was a picture found online and Harrison was Smith's eight-year-old son. Smith defended the tactic in blunt terms: "my son is dying and I'm willing to do whatever it takes to save him."
Clicks are not donations, and an advert is not a controlled study. Still, the campaign was a sharp public demonstration of what Levin and Arluke measured: an appealing animal can draw attention that a human need struggles to get.
What the study does not show
- It does not say people value dogs' lives above humans'. It measured a feeling after reading a short text, not what people would do in a real emergency.
- It used college students. The researchers themselves noted that older or younger people might respond differently.
- The stories were fictional. Real news comes with context, names and faces that change how readers react.
- Cats were not tested. The authors guessed cats might produce similar results, but that is a guess.
The common summary, that "humans care more about dogs than other people", is therefore too strong. A fairer one is that people tend to feel less for adult human victims than for any victim they see as helpless, and they place dogs in the helpless group.
Why it matters
For charities and journalists, the lesson is that vulnerability drives response. That can be used well, by showing clearly why an adult in need is not to blame, or badly, through emotional tricks. For the rest of us, it is a useful moment of self-awareness. If a story about a hurt dog moves you and a similar story about an adult stranger leaves you cold, it is worth asking whether you have quietly decided the adult could have helped himself.
Caring about animals and caring about people are not in competition. Most people who are moved by animal suffering are moved by human suffering too, and the study suggests our empathy is less fixed than it looks: it shifts with how a story frames the victim.
Sources: Faunalytics summary of Levin, Arluke and Irvine (2017), Society & Animals 25(1); NBC News: Abused puppies get more sympathy than adult crime victims (2013); Northeastern University news; Third Sector: Harrison's Fund "I wish my son was a dog" (2015).
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