Animals are used by humans in many ways, yet science has paid little attention to the study of human-animal relationships (Melson 2002). In the present study participants (n= 96) completed a questionnaire on attitudes towards animal use and individual differences were examined to determine which characteristics might underlie these attitudes ('belief in animal mind', age, gender, experience of animals, vegetarianism, political stance, and living area). It emerged that participants held different views for different types of animal use, and that belief in animal mind (BAM) was a powerful and consistent predictor of these attitudes, with BAM together with gender and vegetarianism predicting up to 37% of the variance in attitudes towards animal use.Thus future research should acknowledge the importance of BAM as a major underlying factor of attitudes towards animal use, and should also distinguish between different types of animal use when measuring attitudes. We proposed that the large effect of BAM might be due to increasing interest in animal mind over the past decade.

Despite the popularity of the interview in qualitative research, methodological and theoretical problems remain. In this article, the author critically examines some of these problems for the researcher. He deals with the problems of power and resistance, distinguishing truth from authenticity, the (im)possibility of consent if knowing is a problem for both the interviewer and the interviewee, and the nature and significance of stories and the self. Although it is not always possible to address these problems directly, the author seeks in this article to create a dialogue with all of us for whom the interview is judged to be the appropriate answer to the research question "How can I know...?"

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This longitudinal study examines secrets keeping and disclosure. College students ®lled in two questionnaires, with a 4 months time span in between. Their psychological and physical wellbeing was investigated, together with self-esteem, the topic and some characteristics of their most important secret (if they had a secret), reasons for having the secret, to whom they con®de the secret, how they felt about con®ding, and whether they thought that their behaviour would reveal that they kept a secret when they talked with someone who is not aware of their secret.The ®ndings showed that total secrecy was rare, and that most secret-holders had informed at least one other person about their secret. Moreover, the ®ndings challenge the view that secrets keeping has negative effects on secret-holders. Results revealed some negative effects, but only when the secret was serious. No positive effects were found for secrets disclosure.Secret-holders con®ded information to those with whom they felt emotionally close; were more reluctant to con®de when they kept the secret to avoid disapproval, and more likely to con®de when they believed that others would ®nd out about their secrets by paying attention to their (secretholders) behaviour.

This study uses qualitative methodology to examine why people have different attitudes toward different types of nonhuman animal use. Seventeen participants took part in a semi-structured interview. The study used Grounded Theory to analyze the interviews and developed a model that consists of 4 major themes: (a) "attitudes toward animals," (b) "knowledge of animal use procedures," (c) "perceptions of choice," and (d) "cost-benefit analysis." The findings illustrate that cognitive processing, characteristics of the species of animal being used, and the type of animal use can all influence attitudes toward animal use. Because previous research has focused on participant variables such as age and gender to explain variance in attitudes toward animal use (Furnham & Pinder, 1990; Kellert & Berry, 1981) and measured attitudes toward animal use in general (rather than distinguishing between different types of use) (Armstrong & Hutchins, 1996), these findings can add to knowledge of people's views on animal use. This paper discusses how such views may be justified and maintained.