Posting a photo of a puppy is a surefire way to get someone’s attention. Ask anyone to think of a baby animal and a puppy is usually the first thing they’ll think of.

The big ears, little nose, and adorable paws of a puppy are enough to touch anyone’s heart.

But what about them attracts us so much? And more relevantly, why do we feel so protective of them?

The image of a puppy in any form of distress is enough to shatter someone’s heart – but just how far does our sympathy and protectiveness over dogs go?

We’ve all been there: Someone shares a picture of an injured dog or you see one on the street.

Suddenly, you’re filled with a nearly irresistible urge to help it. Does everyone feel this way?

You’re not the only one wondering.

It’s a question that touches on evolution and psychology and is one that this study attempted to investigate.

The authors of the study looked at two factors: current need and vulnerability. It appears that those two factors highly affect how sympathetic we are towards someone or something.

And how did the rest of the study work?

They used a random sample of 256 undergraduates at a northeastern university.

That means there’s nothing else at play that might skew their answers (aka, a sampling bias).

The scientists prepared a made-up news story about an injured subject – the character being one of these four things: A grown person, a child, an adult dog, or a puppy.

The story describes the subject as being badly beaten and injured. Referred to as a vignette in the study, the short story was composed to get straight to the point and really test what the authors wanted to investigate.

One by one, they’d ask all 256 participants how sympathetic they felt about the subject in the story.

But obviously, the participants didn’t know that they weren’t all hearing the same story.

Some were told the victim was a grown person, others were told it was a child. And others were told it was a puppy.

They’d then ask the participants to rate how sympathetic they felt on various scales. First on a simple 1-7 scale, and with a broader scale that specified emotions from “Not very sympathetic” to “Very sympathetic and saddened”.

The results painted a very interesting picture.

Of the four subjects they used, the puppy got a higher sympathetic response than either the grown person or the adult dog.

The only subject that got a higher sympathetic response was the human child.

It seems like our love for puppies is deeply rooted now, thanks to millennia of domesticating dogs and living alongside them.

As a side note, the authors of the study also noticed that the female participants were more sympathetic towards the subjects than the males.

Either way, the puppy’s dominance over the adult dog and person in the experiment was surprising. Or maybe not so surprising, depending on your outlook.

Now we know why those stories of rescued puppies get so much attention, don’t we?

Nonetheless, a badly suffering person- even an adult, would fill anyone with sympathy and sadness. How many times have you seen GoFundme fundraisers and news stories of people suffering?

And you’re telling me that puppies still get more sympathy from people? I’d hardly believe it myself if it weren’t for this well-put-together study.

But the science speaks for itself, and puppies really do have a talent for tugging at the heartstrings.

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Source: Levin et al. 2017, Business Insider