Battered Dogs Elicit More Sympathy Than Battered Adult Humans

Do college students lack sympathy for adults who get beat up? I bet this holds for other age brackets and educational levels. In their study, Levin and co-author Arnold Arluke, a sociology professor at Northeastern University, considered the opinions of 240 men and women, most of whom were white and between the ages of 18-25, at a large northeastern university. Participants randomly received one of four fictional news articles about the beating of a one-year-old child, an adult in his thirties, a puppy, or a 6-year-old dog. The stories were identical except for the victim's identify. After reading their story, respondents were asked to rate their feelings of empathy towards the victim. "We were surprised by the interaction of age...
Source: FuturePundit - Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Source Type: blogs