Empathy is a key social skill that develops gradually during childhood. Although it is primarily studied in the context of human-to-human interactions, it also extends to other species. Various factors influence the strength of empathy toward other species, including phylogenetic distance.
The aim of this study was to examine whether this factor also affects children’s empathy toward other species. Three hundred and eight children—aged 5 to 12—took an empathy-based choice test using a wide range of photographs of organisms, followed by a scale measuring their empathetic tendencies toward their human peers…