Why do we sympathize with animals more than people
Animal abuse - a problem about the scale of which many try not to think. At the same time, individual cases of atrocities against animals are heavily covered by the media and cause a violent emotional response, be it the story of the giraffe Marius killed in the Copenhagen zoo, or the lion Cecil, who fell victim to the trophy hunter. All this suggests that the mechanisms of our empathy work selectively: we react differently to the suffering of a kitten, a cow and a bull terrier, and the tragedy of a single person or a social group can completely leave someone indifferent. Alison Nastasi turned to experts in sociology, psychology and anthrozoology and asked them to explain how our perceptions of animal suffering are influenced by ideas about their function in society, and how it is connected with the tradition of blaming the victim if it is human.
In short, it all depends on what kind of animals, and what kind of people. The level of empathy that we are able to experience depends on our ideas about the innocence of the victim. This question is just devoted to a study that we conducted with Arnold Arlyuk and Jack Levin, which was published in the journal Society & Animals. We proceeded from the assumption that people are much more touched by the sufferings of animals than the sufferings of other people. Arnie and Jack conducted an experiment at Northeastern University, inviting 240 students to read an article allegedly published in the Boston Globe. In fact, they were given four different versions of the text about the same incident: only the details differed, that is, the injured. In the first case it was an adult, in the second - a child, in the third - a puppy, and in the fourth - an adult dog. After reading the article, the experiment participants noted their level of sympathy on a 15-point scale. It turned out that most of all the audience was touched and saddened by the story about the child, then about the puppy, then about the dog and only last of all about the adult person.
Animals make us more human. There are studies confirming that some people are able to experience greater empathy and react more violently to information about violence against animals than about people. In particular, a recent study by sociologists Arnold Arlyuk and Jack Levin suggests that we are becoming more insensitive to stories of human torment, in particular because the news often focuses on the aggressors and perpetrators of the crime, rather than on the personal stories of the victims. This may be one of the reasons why people react much more emotionally to stories of animal abuse - such as in the cases of the killing of a six-month-old giraffe Marius at the Zoo of Copenhagen or the lion Cecil in Zimbabwe. Regardless of whether they are talking about an animal or a person, people always have more sympathy for the individual victim than for the whole affected group.
Social constructs are the keys to understanding all types of violence and reactions to it, be it a private story of bullying one person over another or social violence against a social group or animals. The perception of vulnerability or innocence is an important factor in the formation of these reactions. From psychological and sociological research, we know that the more we identify with an individual who has a name, a person and fate, the more we will experience empathy for him and not allow ourselves or to indulge in violence against him.
In turn, when a whole group of “other” people is subjected to violence, we prefer to psychologically distance ourselves and limit ourselves to empathy. This is called "homogenization." That is, when aggression is aimed at "Jews" or "gays", elephants or sea lions in general - but not one of them - it is much more difficult for us to worry about this. Regarding the same lion Cecil, the media sounded the opinion that if he were "just another lion" and not an outstanding individual, there would not have been such a unanimous indignant reaction. Given everything we know about empathy and the importance of perceiving the victim as an individual, this seems to be true. Moreover, if the killer knew that the lion he had aimed at was a “personality”, he probably would not have killed him - unless, of course, he had any psychopathic abnormalities in which the average way of thinking is inapplicable.
Moreover, the path of prejudice to a certain group from the standpoint of superiority leads us further away from empathy and towards dehumanization. The final cognitive step towards violence is demonization. For example, in the story of the murder of the lion Cecil, the media positioned his killer as an "enemy of the people." This is dangerous and fraught with the fact that people are up in arms against an abstract symbol and stop viewing this situation as an act of a single individual person.
At a quick glance, this story has an obvious victim and killer, and everything is clearly divided into black and white. Most people will agree that trophy hunting is a monstrous and vicious practice, like so many other things that people practice, causing great torment to other people, as well as to our planet. However, on closer examination, many more complex issues, such as racism, poverty, class division, the difference in the perception of human and animal suffering, and many other factors, emerge from simple morality.
Psychologists and sociologists are constantly expanding the field of knowledge about empathy and the relationship between people and animals. For example, we know that people who have problems with attachment and building relationships due to injuries caused to them in the past by other people can be helped by communication with animals and love for them. Awareness of the fact that animals are sentient beings, and they also suffer, makes us more human.
Of course, the assumption that the sufferings of animals cause much more indignation in us, on the whole, erroneous - considering how indifferent society is to the torment of many animals and even does not recognize them as torment. I am talking about animals raised on farms and factories to decorate our plates, and about testing cosmetics and drugs in laboratory test subjects - about all animals that are denied the right to live in their natural habitat. So our attention and responsiveness to the sufferings of our smaller brothers is extremely selective and mainly comes down to pets and individual members of the megafauna - a beached whale or a tiger that has become a victim of poachers.
One of the reasons for selective empathy, when people are much more touched by the suffering of animals, is the lack of ambivalence in relations between people and animals: my dog cannot answer me, but often clearly demonstrates its reactions and expectations. I have no reason to doubt her loyalty, although she often behaves the same way with other people. Another explanation is that the history of selective breeding and breeding of companion animals led to neoteny - the preservation of infantile and detriodal traits in adulthood, such as large eyes or forehead. As a result, companion animals give us the same paternal and maternal instincts as children.
From a sociological point of view, this problem is best viewed and studied in the context of how complex and contradictory our views and judgments are regarding animals. In our society, some animals have won a certain status and recognition. My favorite example is a dog. In most countries, dogs are not considered as food, but not in all. We are accustomed to the fact that dogs live in our homes, sometimes even sleep in our beds, and we feed them. And somewhere dogs are used to protect against predators and are perceived as dirty creatures, which can not be allowed on the threshold.
The same lions are respected in our society: they are animals endowed with myth, which we have seen since childhood in a zoo or circus. We are a kind of generalized collective “we” - we are of the opinion that they cannot be food and cannot be hunted. The lions are sanctified by our special patronage, although someone may argue that they are being exploited for the amusement of the public. America, like many other countries, is not their natural habitat, and the demonstration of these animals is designed to delight the human eye. But the fact that protests against the exploitation of animals in the circus is still relevant, suggests that there is no consensus on this issue and not everyone agrees that animals should not be put to the good of society. It is still a gray area that many other species fall into: dolphins, whales, elephants, and so on. Moreover, the confusion of our attitude towards animals is confirmed by the fact that we tend to put some animals hierarchically above others. For example, an elk or a cow will cause one reaction, and a lion - somewhat different, because for some, the first ones fall into the category of potential food.
It is important to clarify what I mean by talking about "us." In all societies there are unspoken rules. A number of these rules are crystal clear to everyone, but some are much more vague and leave room for interpretations. For example, at what distance from each other need to stand in line? Or is it worth it to dismiss a person after one date? We have the answers to these questions thanks to years of socialization through family, friends and the media. And although sometimes we are not even able to articulate these rules, we definitely feel when someone breaks. Some of our views on animals are extremely simple: we do not eat our pets, nor do we have sex with them (although this, preferably, applies to all animals). But some are much less rectilinear. Should we use animals for entertainment? Should we eat animals? And if so, what and how to kill them? Do I need to ban hunting? What animals are allowed to hunt, and why is it normal to hunt some animals, but not others? All these questions and views come into infinite contradiction with each other.
So why the image of the suffering of animals causes a much more vigorous response and anger than the same images of people? It is generally accepted that certain animals are innocent by nature and must be under our protection. But we do not tend to endow with such innocence of people. “We” are still accustomed to blaming the victim for her misfortunes and miseries. We recognize that animals do not “run up” to kill, but for some reason we deny this to people. And our reactions to the suffering of people are directly caused by our views on the concept of “victim” as a whole, as well as its race, gender, gender, or class affiliation.
Despite the fact that individual cases of atrocities against animals (such as the shot lion Cecil, the pit bull Caitlin, the mouth taped with adhesive tape, the nameless kittens that were thrown against the wall, the rabbit Allan, killed on the air of a Danish radio station, etc.) attract attention media and cause unanimous horror, this does not mean that people in general are much more worried about animals than people. Yes, we noticeably easier to resent individual cases of cruelty than the countless animals that each year become victims of human greed, vanity or heartlessness. Psychologists have proved that the greater the number of dead or injured (no matter people or animals), the less our sympathy. We pay attention to individual victims, because it is easier for us to comprehend such a scale of disaster. But it's not just numbers.
Focusing on the private histories of animal abuse (or, on the contrary, the spirit-lifting stories of their salvation and healing), we “redeem” our own indifference to larger disasters and allow ourselves not to think about the systematic nightmares that trap animals in our society. Moreover, I dare say that the media coverage of each individual bright case actually disguises institutionalized cruelty towards animals, which is not just going on every day, but in which we are passively guilty of our indifference. We love to eat meat, we want to think that the goods we consume are safe for humans (although even tests and medical experiments are unable to fully guarantee this), we buy, breed and sell animals without the slightest worry about their future. And some of us just kill animals of sports interest. And our outrage or rage over one separately killed beast will not help.
Photo: 1, 2, 3 via Shutterstock