December 22, 2025, 4:03 pm | Read time: 5 minutes
Do animals have thoughts and feelings just like us? A global study provides fascinating answers. From Ecuador to Japan, children and adults largely believe that animals can think and feel. However, one key trait remains reserved for humans: “human thinking.” This widespread belief may shape our relationship with animals more than we realize—from pets to factory farming.
That Animals Feel Seems Undeniable
The question of whether animals can think and feel is not only philosophically relevant—it directly impacts how we treat animals. In Western cultures, the notion of the “uniquely human mind” is deeply rooted. While basic emotions such as fear or joy are often attributed to animals, complex mental abilities—like strategic thinking or moral judgment—are usually only credited to humans.
Previous studies show that this distinction is culturally influenced and develops in childhood. However, there has been a lack of comparative studies across multiple cultures. This study aimed to change that. How do perceptions of animal thinking and feeling develop worldwide—and how strongly are they culturally influenced?
The study focused on two questions: 1) Do animals have thoughts and feelings? 2) Are these thoughts and feelings human-like or fundamentally different? A total of 1,025 children and adolescents aged 4 to 17, along with 190 adults from 33 communities worldwide, were surveyed. To account for cultural differences, interviews were conducted by local researchers in the respective native languages. The questions were open-ended to capture children’s intuitions. The study was conducted by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and the University of Leipzig, led by Karri Neldner and Daniel Haun, as part of the “Children and Nature (CaN)” project. It will be published in the prestigious “Journal of Environmental Psychology” in the February 2026 issue. However, it is already available online.
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Cultural Differences Emerge Early
More than 1,200 children, adolescents, and adults from 33 urban and rural communities in 15 countries were studied. This included a wide range of countries from Germany to Namibia, from Indonesia to Peru. It is the first study of its kind to systematically compare so many cultures and age groups.
Most children, adolescents, and adults believe that animals have thoughts and feelings. For children with an average age of 10.8 years, the estimated probability of answering “Yes” was 88% for thoughts and 97% for feelings. Adults showed an even higher level of agreement, with over 94% affirming.
However, there were differences regarding the similarity to the human mind. Animal thoughts were perceived as fundamentally different across all cultures—even among the youngest children. Only 9% of children described animal thoughts as “human-like.” In contrast, 65% said that animals have feelings like humans.
Responses regarding feelings varied significantly by culture. Children from urban communities were generally more willing to attribute mental abilities to animals than children from rural areas. Interestingly, this pattern reversed among adults: adults from rural areas more often saw animals as mentally similar to humans.
Convinced of Human Uniqueness
The study shows: The belief in human uniqueness seems to exist across cultures. This might explain why animals, despite growing evidence of their intelligence and emotions, are often still viewed as “different” or “less valuable.”
Thinking, in particular, is seen as a boundary: animals may have feelings, but probably not thoughts. This distinction has consequences: animals not attributed with deeper thoughts are less likely to receive compassion, moral protection, or legal recognition. Conversely, feelings could serve as a bridge to compassion—an approach that education, animal welfare, and environmental policy could increasingly utilize.
Despite the cultural breadth and methodological care, there are limitations to the study. The number of adults per location was limited (usually fewer than ten), and interviews were conducted by various local partners, which may have led to slight methodological differences. Additionally, no distinction was made between animal species—one child might have thought of dogs, another of snakes. It is also critical to note that terms like “thoughts” and “feelings” do not have the same meaning in all languages, which was mitigated by careful translations but not entirely eliminated. 1
Different Cultures Don’t Think So Differently About Animals as Expected
“From a cultural and animal ethics perspective, this study is particularly fascinating. For a long time, I assumed that the devaluation of animals—the notion that they are less valuable or fundamentally inferior to us—is primarily learned during upbringing and that children initially approach animals with greater empathy. However, the results suggest a different interpretation: children worldwide are aware of the otherness of animals very early on—not in terms of devaluation, but as an intuitive boundary between human and non-human existence.
That animals feel seems almost self-evident to both children and adults. Yet thinking remains reserved for humans—and this is remarkably stable across cultures and age groups. Empathy for animals is therefore not automatically given but must apparently be actively passed on, explained, and exemplified. Animal protection, one might conclude, does not arise solely from children’s closeness to nature but from cultural transmission: through parents, education, and societal narratives.”