Man's best friends: attitudes towards the use of different kinds of animal depend on belief in different species' mental capacities and purpose of use.

Matthew J Higgs,Helen J Cassaday,Sasha Bipin

doi:10.1098/rsos.191162

Matthew J Higgs, Helen J Cassaday + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.191162

Copy DOI

Abstract

The animal purpose questionnaire (APQ) is a new instrument to measure human attitudes to animal use systematically across both species and purpose of use. This offers a more fine-grained approach to our understanding of how the belief in a specific animal's mental capacities relates to (dis-)agreement with their use for different human purposes. In the present study, 317 participants completed an online survey containing the APQ and the belief in animal mind (BAM) scale in a species-specific format, to test the prediction that levels of (dis-)agreement with animal use should mirror participants' judgements of animal sentience. The results obtained with the APQ confirmed that attitudes to animal use differed significantly across both purpose and species. Key findings included a relatively greater concern for dolphins and dogs over chimpanzees (suggesting that phylogenetic position is not the only determinant of attitudes to animal use). Across the purposes examined, respondents were largely negative about animal usage, with the exception that there was less disagreement if this was for medical research. Participants were also asked to provide demographic details such as gender and dietary preference. Regression analyses revealed high predictive power for species-specific BAM across five different kinds of animal use. General BAM scores, non-meat-eating and being female accounted for 31.5% of the total variability in APQ scores. The results indicate that BAM is a strong predictor of self-reported attitudes for using particular animals. However, the results showed some exceptions in the case of culturally typical ‘produce’ animals.

Highlights

The animal purpose questionnaire (APQ) is a new instrument to measure human attitudes to animal use systematically across both species and purpose of use
The results obtained with the APQ confirmed that attitudes to animal use differed significantly across both purpose and species
General belief in animal mind (BAM) scores, nonmeat-eating and being female accounted for 31.5% of the total variability in APQ scores

Summary

Introduction

The animal purpose questionnaire (APQ) is a new instrument to measure human attitudes to animal use systematically across both species and purpose of use. In addition to employing conventionally formulated items such as ‘It is morally wrong to hunt animals just for sport’ [3], the present study asked participants to indicate their attitudes to the use of a list of named animals ( presented simultaneously to encourage comparative ratings), for a variety of specific purposes, in a structured and transparent format using the new animal purpose questionnaire (APQ). This approach allowed a systematic consideration of attitudes across selected species of animal and purposes of use, as well as assessment of convergent validity with the AAS. It has been reported that species is a key determinant of BAM [18,20,22], the current study employs a species-specific version of the BAM scale in place of the more general categories of animals examined in previous studies [9,21]

Objectives

Methods

Results