Compassion Alone Won’t Drive Change For Animals

Advocacy organizations routinely rely on compassion appeals — messages designed to make audiences feel concern for the suffering of others — to motivate action. In the animal protection movement, these appeals are everywhere, from footage of chickens in barren, crowded conditions, to images of sea turtles caught in plastic netting, to stories of neglected dogs in need of veterinary care. The assumption is intuitive: if people see suffering, they’ll want to help. But the research on whether compassion appeals actually work tells a more complicated story.

A team of researchers conducted a critical review of existing evidence to understand when and why compassion appeals succeed or fail, and what advocates can do to make them more effective. Their goal was to identify the conditions under which these appeals motivate different types of prosocial behavior, from one-time charitable donations to sustained engagement with structural change.

Reviewing The Evidence

The team searched a major academic database for studies measuring compassion elicited by persuasive appeals and linking it to some form of prosocial action. After applying strict eligibility criteria, they analyzed 77 articles reporting 116 empirical studies, drawn from fields including psychology, marketing, environmental studies, and political science. Most studies used experimental designs. The review followed a systematic process for gathering, screening, and assessing the literature.

Three Key Dynamics

What makes compassion appeals work or fail comes down to three interconnected dynamics.

First, compassion must be successfully elicited. Two factors are especially important: the perceived severity of the suffering depicted and the perceived legitimacy of the victim’s plight (whether audiences feel the victim is blameless). Vivid, detailed portrayals of suffering tend to activate compassion, as do appeals featuring a single, identifiable victim rather than large statistical groups. Audiences are also more likely to feel compassion toward victims they perceive as similar to themselves. Notably, the researchers found evidence that the identifiable victim effect — typically a reliable lever in humanitarian appeals — may not apply in the same way when victims are animals. This is a particularly relevant challenge for animal advocacy.

Second, compassion is often activated alongside distress, but too much distress can backfire. Audiences who feel overwhelmed by an appeal may disengage, blame the victim, or take low-impact symbolic actions to relieve their own discomfort rather than genuinely helping. The researchers describe an “area of acceptability” for compassion appeals: effective appeals must cross a threshold intense enough to activate compassion, while staying below a second threshold at which distress overtakes compassion and causes audiences to shut down. Emphasizing what individuals can concretely do, and making those actions feel meaningful and achievable, helps keep audiences in this productive zone.

Third, and perhaps most critically for advocates working on lasting change, compassion alone is poorly suited to driving transformative action. The review finds that compassion reliably motivates prosocial helping, such as donating money, volunteering time, and offering support to individuals in immediate need. But when it comes to actions aimed at changing underlying systems, like supporting policy reform, engaging in collective action, or pressuring institutions, compassion falls short. According to the researchers, this is because compassion operates through an “ethic of care” focused on immediate suffering, while transformative action requires an “ethic of responsibility” built on accountability and moral agency.

Compassion Blends: A New Approach

To address this gap, the researchers propose the concept of “compassion blends” — appeals that pair compassion with either moral anger or guilt. When audiences feel both compassion for a victim and anger toward a blameworthy third party (a corporation, government, or industry), they’re more likely to support collective redress and systemic change. The researchers call this a “commitment blend.” When audiences feel both compassion for victims and guilt about their own role in causing harm, they’re more likely to engage in reparative personal action — changing their own behavior to make amends. This is termed an “atonement blend.” The paper provides a practical tool for designing appeals using each approach, including example messaging and calls to action.

Limitations

The review draws primarily on experimental studies conducted in controlled settings, where participants are exposed to single, specially designed appeals. Real-world campaigns involve repeated exposure over time, audience fatigue, and far more complex emotional environments. Only one included study examined the effects of repeated exposure to compassion appeals, and found that it reduced compassion over time. Additionally, most studies focused on human victims; while some included animals, the evidence base for animal-specific appeals is thinner, and key dynamics may work differently in that context.

For Animal Advocates

This review offers both a caution and a roadmap. Campaigns that lead with compassion alone may generate donations and expressions of concern, but they may be less suited to driving the policy changes and institutional reform that animals most need. For campaigns targeting systems, like factory farming or commercial fishing practices, pairing compassion with moral anger directed at the corporations, governments, or industries responsible for animal suffering is likely more effective than compassion alone. For campaigns aimed at shifting consumer behavior, such as choosing cruelty-free cosmetics or ethical wildlife tourism, combining compassion with guilt about personal choices may motivate deeper, more lasting change. In either case, advocates should be mindful of the distress threshold: imagery that overwhelms audiences may produce avoidance rather than action. Clear, accessible, and meaningful calls to action are essential for keeping audiences engaged rather than overwhelmed.

This summary was drafted by a large language model (LLM) and closely edited by our Research Library Manager for clarity and accuracy. As per our AI policy, Faunalytics only uses LLMs to summarize very long reports (~50+ pages) that are not appropriate to assign to volunteers, studies that contain graphic descriptions of animal cruelty or animal industries, and research on niche topics. We remain committed to bringing you reliable data, which is why any AI-generated work will always be reviewed by a human.