Why We Feel More for Some Animals Than Others, According to a Compassion Review

A 2026 narrative review in Frontiers in Ethology looks at compassion for animals as a topic in its own right. It defines compassion as sensitivity to suffering combined with a commitment to relieve it, which separates it from empathy, where understanding another’s feelings need not lead to action. The review argues that human concern for animals is uneven: evolutionary caregiving instincts respond most to familiarity and vulnerability, so people tend to feel more for companion animals than for farmed animals, fish or invertebrates. Compassion for animals and for people are moderately related but have different predictors, such as pet ownership and childhood contact with animals. Compassion also tends to stay flat or decline without practice, and the review points to education, mindfulness-based practices and time in nature as ways to strengthen it. It also notes that ritual and religious frameworks can sometimes legitimize harming animals. Its conclusion calls for longitudinal research and better measures, since most evidence so far is correlational.