Empathy for Human and Non-Human Animal Pain: How Species Categorization, Pain Cues, and Psychosocial Traits Shape Pain Perception and Prosocial Intentions

Empathy for pain guides moral concern and prosocial behaviour, yet little is known about how it extends across species. This study examined how people perceive and respond to pain in humans, pets, and farmed animals, and how these responses relate to individual psychosocial traits. We developed and validated the Cross-Species Pain Empathy Task (C-SPET), the first image-based tool enabling direct comparison of pain perception and willingness to help across species. A total of 407 undergraduate participants rated perceived pain and support intentions after viewing images of wounded (pain) and non-wounded (no-pain) individuals from each species category. Participants reported greater willingness to help animals than humans, possibly due to perceptions of animals as more vulnerable. Within the animal category, when no pain was visible, farmed animals were perceived as suffering more and received more support than pets. Awareness of the typical living conditions of farmed animals may lead people to infer suffering even in the absence of pain cues. When pain was explicit, pets were perceived as suffering more and received more support than farmed animals. Pain cues may have triggered either emotional closeness toward pets or cognitive dissonance in response to farmed animal suffering, as this challenged participants’ everyday practices such as meat consumption. Canonical correlation analyses revealed two psychosocial profiles linked to pain sensitivity and prosocial intentions. A caring, pro-animal profile was associated with greater support for non-human animals. A second profile, reflecting emotional reactivity, religiosity, and cultural background, was linked to heightened pain sensitivity across species. Species-specific biases were shaped by distinct traits. Favouring animals over humans was associated with pro-animal attitudes, life choices, and lower prejudice, possibly reflecting a strategic moral prioritisation of often neglected groups. Favouring pets over farmed animals was linked to ethnicity, higher meat consumption, political conservatism, and social dominance orientation, suggesting a tendency to maintain traditional roles around animal categories. These findings highlight the psychosocial factors that shape pain empathy and caring behaviour across species.