研究表明，有些人爱狗胜过爱其他人

研究表明，有些人爱狗胜过爱其他人

“Would You Rather” is an extremely fun game to play with family and friends, especially when it is done spontaneously. You’ll probably be surprised to hear that scientists enjoy playing this game too, covering a variety of topics.

“Would You Rather”是一个非常有趣的游戏，可以和家人朋友一起玩，尤其是自发进行的时候。你可能会惊讶地听到科学家们也喜欢玩这个游戏，涵盖了各种各样的主题。

Well, all right, science tends to be more complicated than proposing a “this or that” question, but the principle is the same. A study by Jack Levin, Arnold Arluke, and Leslie Irvine asked 240 students to read a fictional news story, whereby law enforcement was called to investigate a savage beating, but no arrests were made. Each student received a different fictional story at random, whereby the only difference is the victim: an infant, a puppy, an adult dog, or an adult human. Afterward, they were asked to indicate the level of empathy towards the victim.

好吧，科学往往比提出“这个或那个”的问题更复杂，但原理是一样的。杰克•列文、阿诺德•阿卢克和莱斯利•尔湾进行了一项研究，他们让240名学生阅读一篇虚构的新闻故事，并要求执法部门调查一起野蛮殴打事件，但没有人被捕。每个学生随机收到一个不同的虚构故事，唯一不同的是受害者:一个婴儿，一只小狗，一只成年狗，或者一个成年人。之后，他们被要求表明对受害者的同情程度。

A study was conducted on people’s empathy towards humans vs. animals in Northeastern University

东北大学进行了一项关于人们对人和动物的同理心的研究

Image credits: Jordan Koons / Unsplash

The study aims to identify the level to which respondents are emotionally disturbed by reports of human and animal suffering and abuse. The idea came from the popular view that the media seems to evoke greater emotional reactions and draw more attention from the public with stories that involve animal victims rather than human victims.

这项研究的目的是确定受访者对人类和动物遭受虐待和虐待的情绪困扰程度。这一想法源于一种流行的观点，即媒体似乎通过报道动物受害者而非人类受害者来唤起更大的情感反应，吸引公众更多的注意力。

Levin et. al. illustrated this with Harrison’s Fund, a Duchenne muscular dystrophy support charity. They ran a fundraiser and used two versions of the same ad. Both of them had the caption “Would you give 5 pounds to save Harrison from a slow, painful death?” However, the featured image was different: one was of an eight-year-old with Duchenne, while the other was a stock photo of a dog. The dog version ended up attracting twice as many clicks compared to the version with the boy.

莱文等人以哈里森基金会(Harrison 's Fund)为例说明了这一点。他们举办了一场募捐活动，并使用了同一个广告的两个版本。两人的说明文字都是:“你愿意出5英镑救哈里森免于缓慢痛苦的死亡吗?”然而，特色图片却有所不同:一张是一位8岁的杜兴儿童，另一张是一只狗的照片。狗狗版的点击量是男孩版的两倍。

Image credits: Bernt Sønvisen

Though there were similar studies done on the issue of empathy towards humans vs. animals, many of them ended up being inconclusive due to how the nature of empathy is viewed. This eventually lead to further research that supports the idea of two kinds of empathy—these share certain components, as opposed to a single emotional mechanism.

虽然也有类似的关于人类与动物的同理心问题的研究，但由于同理心的本质是如何被看待的，很多研究结果都是不确定的。这最终导致了进一步的研究，支持了两种共情的观点——它们共享特定的组成部分，而不是单一的情感机制。

240 students were asked to respond to a fake article, the victims of which were randomized

240名学生被要求对一篇假文章做出反应，其中的受害者是随机的

Image credits: Russell Trow

The current study gives a number of insights, the main one being the idea that the victim’s age was a key factor in triggering empathy. Respondents were the least empathic to the adult human victim, while infants received the most empathy. Puppies and adult dogs came in between the two human options, leaning much more towards infant rather than adult human scores.

目前的研究给出了一些见解，其中最主要的观点是，受害者的年龄是引发同理心的关键因素。被调查者对成人受害者的同情心最少，而婴儿的同情心最多。小狗和成年狗介于两种人类选择之间，更倾向于婴儿而不是成年人类的得分。

Scientists suggest that the high empathy score for infants is because respondents view infants as similar to themselves, of their own kind. This idea connects to their second explanation that both infants and dogs are vulnerable, thus bringing human-animal empathy scores closer to those of the infant. However, neither of these explanations are confirmed in the current study.

科学家认为，婴儿的同理心得分高，是因为受访者认为婴儿与自己相似，属于同类。这一观点与他们的第二个解释相联系，即婴儿和狗都是脆弱的，从而使人与动物的同理心得分更接近婴儿。然而，这两种解释在目前的研究中都没有得到证实。

It’s official—science says people are more empathetic towards dogs than they are with human adults

官方科学称，与人类相比，人们更容易理解狗

Image credits: KerriRae