The Role of Gender in Public Perception of Whether Animals Can Experience Grief and Other Emotions

Abstract

ABSTRACTGender plays a significant role in influencing people's attitudes toward animals, however, little is known about how it influences their attribution of emotions to animals. To investigate the role that gender plays in public attitudes toward animals' experience of emotions and beliefs about whether animals can grieve, a face-to-face survey of 1,000 members of the general public was carried out in Brisbane, Australia. Potential respondents were asked to complete a 10-min “social attitudinal” survey. Males were significantly less likely than females to believe that animals experience complex emotions, including depression (p < 0.05), anxiety (p < 0.05), love (p < 0.01), and grief (p < 0.05), but did not differ in regard to basic emotions including distress, fear, happiness, anger, sadness, and fear. Males were also less likely to believe that animals show some behavioral (eating p < 0.05; vocalizing p < 0.01) changes when they experience grief (p < 0.05) and that animals grieve as a result of separation from a conspecific (p < 0.005). These results demonstrate a greater skepticism in males, compared with females, regarding the attribution of emotions to animals.