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Young children value the lives of animals more than adults do

Children aged 6 to 9 are more likely than adults to save the life of a dog, pig or chimpanzee over a person in a hypothetical “trolley problem” scenario

By Alice Klein

14 May 2023

Children who spend time with dogs are more likely to say they would save them over a person

John Howard/Getty Images

If you had to save the life of a person or an animal, which would you choose? Most adults say they would save the person, but almost half of young children would prefer to save the animal instead, according to a study in Poland.

“The finding really surprised us,” says Matti Wilks at the University of Edinburgh in the UK, one of the researchers involved.

The majority of adults view human lives as …

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