研究表明，有些人愛狗勝過愛其他人

研究表明，有些人愛狗勝過愛其他人

“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”是一個(gè)非常有趣的游戲，可以和家人朋友一起玩，尤其是自發(fā)進(jìn)行的時(shí)候。你可能會(huì)驚訝地聽到科學(xué)家們也喜歡玩這個(gè)游戲，涵蓋了各種各樣的主題。

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，科學(xué)往往比提出“這個(gè)或那個(gè)”的問題更復(fù)雜，但原理是一樣的。杰克•列文、阿諾德•阿盧克和萊斯利•爾灣進(jìn)行了一項(xiàng)研究，他們讓240名學(xué)生閱讀一篇虛構(gòu)的新聞故事，并要求執(zhí)法部門調(diào)查一起野蠻毆打事件，但沒有人被捕。每個(gè)學(xué)生隨機(jī)收到一個(gè)不同的虛構(gòu)故事，唯一不同的是受害者:一個(gè)嬰兒，一只小狗，一只成年狗，或者一個(gè)成年人。之后，他們被要求表明對(duì)受害者的同情程度。

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

東北大學(xué)進(jìn)行了一項(xiàng)關(guān)于人們對(duì)人和動(dòng)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.

這項(xiàng)研究的目的是確定受訪者對(duì)人類和動(dòng)物遭受虐待和虐待的情緒困擾程度。這一想法源于一種流行的觀點(diǎn)，即媒體似乎通過報(bào)道動(dòng)物受害者而非人類受害者來喚起更大的情感反應(yīng)，吸引公眾更多的注意力。

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.

萊文等人以哈里森基金會(huì)(Harrison 's Fund)為例說明了這一點(diǎn)。他們舉辦了一場(chǎng)募捐活動(dòng)，并使用了同一個(gè)廣告的兩個(gè)版本。兩人的說明文字都是:“你愿意出5英鎊救哈里森免于緩慢痛苦的死亡嗎?”然而，特色圖片卻有所不同:一張是一位8歲的杜興兒童，另一張是一只狗的照片。狗狗版的點(diǎn)擊量是男孩版的兩倍。

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.

雖然也有類似的關(guān)于人類與動(dòng)物的同理心問題的研究，但由于同理心的本質(zhì)是如何被看待的，很多研究結(jié)果都是不確定的。這最終導(dǎo)致了進(jìn)一步的研究，支持了兩種共情的觀點(diǎn)——它們共享特定的組成部分，而不是單一的情感機(jī)制。

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

240名學(xué)生被要求對(duì)一篇假文章做出反應(yīng)，其中的受害者是隨機(jī)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.

目前的研究給出了一些見解，其中最主要的觀點(diǎn)是，受害者的年齡是引發(fā)同理心的關(guān)鍵因素。被調(diào)查者對(duì)成人受害者的同情心最少，而嬰兒的同情心最多。小狗和成年狗介于兩種人類選擇之間，更傾向于嬰兒而不是成年人類的得分。

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.

科學(xué)家認(rèn)為，嬰兒的同理心得分高，是因?yàn)槭茉L者認(rèn)為嬰兒與自己相似，屬于同類。這一觀點(diǎn)與他們的第二個(gè)解釋相聯(lián)系，即嬰兒和狗都是脆弱的，從而使人與動(dòng)物的同理心得分更接近嬰兒。然而，這兩種解釋在目前的研究中都沒有得到證實(shí)。

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

官方科學(xué)稱，與人類相比，人們更容易理解狗

Image credits: KerriRae