Interestingly, the researchers found that the difference in empathy for children versus puppies was statistically non-significant. 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. Instead, they found "Age makes a difference for empathy toward human victims, but not for dog victims," the researchers wrote in their study abstract, which will be presented this week at the American Sociological Association meeting in New York. "The fact that adult human crime victims receive less empathy than do child, puppy, and full-grown dog victims suggests that adult dogs are regarded as dependent and vulnerable, not unlike their younger canine counterparts and kids," study researcher Jack Levin, a sociology and criminology professor at Northeastern University in Boston, said in a statement. "It appears that adult humans are viewed as capable of protecting themselves, while full-grown dogs are just seen as larger puppies," Levin said. The researchers said they suspect they would find similar results if they looked at empathy levels for other abused pets, such as cats. "These are animals to which many individuals attribute human characteristics," Levin said. 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.
– What's harder to watch: An adult human kicking a puppy or an adult human kicking another adult human? Science says: the puppy. A new study has found abused dogs—both puppies and grown-ups—elicit more sympathy than abused adult humans. Abused human kids, however, are equally sympathetic as abused dogs, LiveScience reports. "The fact that adult human crime victims receive less empathy than do child, puppy, and full grown dog victims suggests that adult dogs are regarded as dependent and vulnerable not unlike their younger canine counterparts and kids," says one of the study's researchers. The researchers at Northeastern University in Boston showed 240 students one of four news articles about a beating—each article was the same except for the victim, which was variously an infant, a puppy, a man in his 30s, or a 6-year-old dog. "We were surprised by the interaction of age and species," says a co-author of the study, per Science Daily. "Age seems to trump species, when it comes to eliciting empathy. In addition, it appears that adult humans are viewed as capable of protecting themselves while full grown dogs are just seen as larger puppies."