Empathy and compassion toward other species decrease with evolutionary divergence time

Miralles, Aurélien; Raymond, M.; Lecointre, Guillaume

doi:10.1038/s41598-019-56006-9

Cited by 126 publications

(115 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…It seems clear that some wildlife species are far more significant to humans than others ( Herzog and Burghardt, 1988 ), perhaps linked to their evolutionary closeness (e.g., primates, and particularly the great apes; Gunnthorsdottir, 2001 ; Miralles et al, 2019 ) or because of their cultural, aesthetic, or affective attributes favoring more interest and attention toward them. Interest and attention favor people’s attitudes for conserving these species, differently from others without a transcendental meaning for social groups.…”

Section: Emotions and Wildlife Conservationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Importance of Human Emotions for Wildlife Conservation

et al. 2020

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Animals have always been important for human life due to the ecological, cultural, and economic functions that they represent. This has allowed building several kinds of relationships that have promoted different emotions in human societies. The objective of this review was to identify the main emotions that humans show toward wildlife species and the impact of such emotions on animal population management. We reviewed academic databases to identify previous studies on this topic worldwide. An analysis of the emotions on wildlife and factors causing them is described in this study. We identified a controversy about these emotions. Large predators such as wolves, coyotes, bears, big felids, and reptiles, such as snakes and geckos, promote mainly anger, fear, and disgust. This is likely due to the perceptions, beliefs, and experiences that societies have historically built around them. However, in some social groups these animals have promoted emotions such as happiness due to their values for people. Likewise, sadness is an emotion expressed for the threatening situations that animals are currently facing. Furthermore, we associated the conservation status of wildlife species identified in the study with human emotions to discuss their relevance for emerging conservation strategies, particularly focused on endangered species promoting ambiguous emotions in different social groups.

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Section: Emotions and Wildlife Conservationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Importance of Human Emotions for Wildlife Conservation

et al. 2020

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“…Participants attributed more mental states and cognitive processes to the macaque and the elephant, and their responses were more homogenous. Miralles and colleagues [98] showed that empathy and compassion toward other species (animal and non-animal) decrease with evolutionary divergence time. Urquiza-Haas and Kotrschal [9] argued that as the phylogenetic distance increases between a human and the species it observes, anthropomorphism reduces or becomes reflective rather than automatic (i.e., visceral).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We also expect that education will lead to less anthropomorphism or to reflective anthropomorphism. Participants are also expected to show more anthropomorphism for species that are phylogenetically close to humans [98].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are They Really Trying to Save Their Buddy? The Anthropomorphism of Animal Epimeletic Behaviours

Sueur¹,

Forin-Wiart²,

Péle³

2020

Preprint

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Anthropomorphism is a natural tendency in humans, but it is also influenced by many characteristics of the observer (the human) and the observed entity (here, the animal species). This study asked participants to complete an online questionnaire about three videos showing epimeletic behaviours in three animal species. In the videos, an individual (a sparrow, an elephant and a macaque, respectively) displayed behaviours towards an inanimate conspecific that suddenly regained consciousness at the end of the footage. A fourth video showed a robot dog being kicked by an engineer to demonstrate its stability. Each video was followed by a series of questions designed to evaluate the degree of anthropomorphism of participants, from mentaphobia (no attribution of intentions and beliefs, whatever the animal species) to full anthropomorphism (full attribution of intentions and beliefs by animals, to the same extent as in humans) and to measure how far the participants had correctly assessed each situation in terms of biological reality (current scientific knowledge of each species). There is a negative correlation (about 61%) between the mental states attributed to animals by humans to animals and the real capability of animals. The heterogeneity of responses proved that humans display different forms of anthropomorphism, from rejecting all emotional or intentional states in animals to considering animals to show the same intentions as humans. However, the scores participants attributed to animals differed according to the species shown in the video and to human sociodemographic characteristics. Understanding the potential usefulness of these factors can lead to better relationships with animals and encourage a positive view of human-robot interactions. Indeed, reflective or critical anthropomorphism can increase our humanity.

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“…A major issue of such an approach to animal ethics is, however, that it remains human-centered (i.e., anthropocentrism) and focused on human thought (i.e., anthropomorphism). Indeed, the human empathy tree appears to be different to the phylogenetic tree, meaning that human empathy toward other organisms is not equally distributed within the tree of life (Miralles et al, 2019). Why, for instance, are cognitive capacities considered to be highly important in defining which animals can be used for human benefit?…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%