Was interested in bears' self awareness when I came across this.
"You're committing the classic zoological sin - anthropocentricity. This means "centred around humans", and it's the idea that "if something is more like me, then it is more likely to be intelligent/good than something that is not like me". Bears have more anthropoid (human-like) traits than dogs do, so most people do subconsciously think of them as "smarter" than dogs, but there is no basis behind this assessment. It's important to be aware of our own bias as humans towards things that look more like us, because that same bias was how white slave-owners justified calling black slaves "naturally stupid" for example."
This summarizes the problem with people as in the more similar something looks like to me the more positive attitude and traits I will attribute on the spot.