Empathy is What Really Sets Vegetarians Apart

An article appeared in PLoS one this May which describesbrain differences between Vegetarians, Vegans and Omnivores in the way they process pictures of animal suffering.

I wasn't going to write about this until later this week, but since the always popular  Scientific Fundamentalist has a related post out at the moment, I figure I should "jump on the bandwagon" with this right away. So here we go:

The study in question is a neuroimaging study intent on investigating whether

"the neural representation of conditions of abuse and suffering might be different among subjects who made different feeding choice due to ethical reasons, and thus result in the engagement of different components of the brain networks associated with empathy and social cognition"

The hypothesis behind this study is based on the observation that Vegetarians and Vegans tend to base their decision to avoid animal products on ethical grounds. Assuming that Vegetarians and Vegans - because of their underlying moral philosophies - show greater empathy towards animal suffering, it is very well possible that these differences in empathy extend beyond the animal domain and show up as general differences in the degree of empathy felt towards other humans also; even at a neurological level.

View More Complete Article on the Source Psychologytoday.com!

Posted in: Articles