Empathy for Animals: A Review of the Existing Literature

Abstract

Empathy is often studied as it relates to humans. However, there is a increasing interest in its relationship, development and impact with non‐human animals. This interest is often driven by a curiosity in empathy's role as an internal motivator for pro‐environmental behavior change. As with many internal affective responses, the link is not always directly clear but growing evidence suggests that empathy towards others can influence the likelihood of pro‐environmental behaviors as they relate to individual animals and potentially their larger communities or species. A hot zone for empathy development; zoos, aquariums, museums, sanctuaries, shelters, nature centers, and other informal environmental education organizations invested in animal conservation are challenged to understand, mitigate or capitalize on the empathy development already occurring in their institutions. These organizations provide opportunities for people to develop close relationships with individual animals, a critical step in the development of empathy. Their ability to facilitate hundreds of up‐close interactions between humans and animals daily establishes these organizations as important venues for the exploration of empathy towards animals and its potential impact on promoting pro‐environmental behavior. In this paper, we review some of the existing literature on empathy in relation to and with non‐human animals, offer a definition as it applies to all species, and discuss key components of empathy development including barriers and promoters.

Experiences in Nature and Environmental Attitudes and Behaviors: Setting the Ground for Future Research

“…Future studies should describe in detail how experiences in nature take place, including the meteorological conditions as well as the natural elements participants might encounter. The possible positive impact of direct and visual contact with non-human animals on people’s pro-environmentalism also needs further consideration [see Young et al (2018) for a review]. Finally, the word nature can have different meanings for people from different cultures (Wohlwill, 1983; Collado et al, 2016; Profice, 2018) and as such the definition of experiences in nature should take into account participants’ cultural background.…”

Exploring the Contributions of an Immersive, Environmental Education Workshop on Pre-Service Teachers’ Environmental Education Preparedness

“…According to the results, the most inspiring part of the day was a presentation about helping students develop an environmental ethic through building empathy for animals [28], age-appropriate environmental topics, and taking action. It included activities that allowed PSTs to discover their own connections to animals and discuss how they can help their students develop empathy for animals, starting with those with which they interact.…”

Relationships between Parental Socialization Styles, Empathy and Connectedness with Nature: Their Implications in Environmentalism

“…Studies on empathy have generally followed a two-dimensional perspective: The cognitive perspective—mental perspective taking—[88,97,98], and the emotional perspective—the vicarious sharing of emotion—[87,99,100]. Recent studies have found that “both cognition and affect are important, but more research is needed to determine how they work together” [101].…”