Hmm, I haven’t seen that correlation, but it’s worth noting that there are all sorts of people who keep pets for all sorts of different reasons, so I don’t doubt it’s true for some.

That makes sense. But becoming a pet owner also makes you more likely to want to save an unspecified dog over a unspecified person.

> becoming a pet owner also makes you more likely to want to save an unspecified dog over a unspecified person

From the article:

> In the scenarios involving an unspecified dog, only around 20% of American pet owners say they would choose to save the dog over the person or people

My reading of that data is different from yours. Does a 20% chance of something sound more likely or less likely?

'Family' takes many different forms though (nation, ethnicity, species, etc) I'm not saying it's right or wrong but I would include a human stranger in my 'family' over a known pet.

More likely than a non pet-owner (10%).

As a meat eater ... you cannot yet know what you lack/you'd gain ;)

> pet owners, their empathy for pets seems to reduce their empathy for fellow humans

It's funny that when someone adopts a rabbit, pig, or chicken as a pet, they often (based on anecdotes) stop eating that specific type of meat, but they don't typically stop eating other animals.

Something changes when people decide to stop eating meat.

No, I'd even grant that my pov could even be a sign of lowered empathy, but as my second part was meant to indicate. On the other hand developing an empathy for other animals can lead to lowered empathy for the 'murderers' of those animals.

If you empathise with foos and bars, and foos are harming bars, surely that would impact your empathy for foos.

Btw, most vegans used to be meat eaters previously.

As my SO says: "they (carnists) just don't know ... yet".

Interesting topics all around.