Yes, kinship theory is a real understanding of behavior, but the animals don't choose compassion over selfishness, they merely make an instinctive survival cost-benefit analysis in the moment. So it's not even a kind of thinking, as we human beings have a conscience and mind capable of abstract conceptual thought that allows us to weigh the morality of what we are considering, and then decide.

Of course, having free will means that we can ignore our unique capabilities and behave as our built-in mammalian, pack-centric, dominance-seeking, body plans provide us out-of-the-box.

The only thinking I have seen in the animal world involve primates and birds using tools, and dolphins using impressive hunting techniques, where the younger generations learn them from the older. Regardless, if they are thinking, they are very primitive.