Vegetarians “do empathy” differently

This is straight from an article by Daniel R. Hawes in Psychology Today:

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

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.

The study – in basic terms – investigates this hypothesis by placing subjects into a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) machine and looking at the “activation” of different brain areas as subjects view a randomized series of pictures. The pictures used for this study included neutral scenes and an even share of scenes depicting various kinds of animal and human suffering.

The first main finding of this study is that, compared to Omnivores, Vegans and Vegetarians show higher activation of empathy related brain areas (e.g. Anterior Cingular Cortex and left Inferior Frontal Gyrus) when observing scenes of suffering; whether it be animal or human suffering.

Further, pictures of animal suffering (in contrast to pictures human suffering) recruited specific brain regions in Vegans and Vegetarians that were not differentially recruited by Omnivores. These were areas which are thought to be associated with higher-order representations of the self and self values (e.g. medial Prefrontal Cortex).

In addition to generally higher activations in the above mentioned areas, a second main finding of this study is that there are certain brain areas which only Vegetarians and Vegans seem to activate when processing pictures of suffering. In particular, when viewing pictures of human suffering, Vegetarians in this study recruited additional brain areas thought to be associated with bodily representations that distinguish self from others. (Notably these areas were particularly active when mutilations were shown).

Fascinating stuff. Read the full article here…

One Response to “Vegetarians “do empathy” differently”

1. NellaLou says:

   July 5, 2010 at 12:12 am

   Thanks for bringing this study up. I read it a couple of days ago and have been thinking about it.

   Notably the participants were all people who chose vegetarianism or veganism as opposed to some who may be vegetarian by culture or religion or diet restriction or otherwise. It seems logical that people with these brain characteristics would be more predisposed to choose vegetarianism.

   There seems to be some implication, or maybe I’m reading that into it, that vegetarianism indicates a more active empathic brain rather than the other way around. I’d like to see a contrasting cross-cultural study.

   Anecdotally, since I live primarily in a culture that strongly embraces vegetarianism (India), I don’t see that correlation. And there’s always the old dictum–correlation does not indicate causality.

   I hope more investigations are done with a broader test base.

   Reply