Bridging the Gap: Human Emotions and Animal Emotions

Mendl, Michael; Neville, Vikki; Paul, Elizabeth S.

doi:10.1007/s42761-022-00125-6

Cited by 25 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 101 publications

(132 reference statements)

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“…For example, many welfare indicators are validated using humans as a form of gold standard (e.g. Mendl et al, 2022). However, such decisions about which proxies to examine may introduce unconscious biases towards or against certain options, and may indeed miss entire categories of proxies relevant for detecting differences in welfare ranges between taxa.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Method for Improving Interspecies Welfare Comparisons

Gaffney¹,

Lavery²,

Schiestl³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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The number of animals bred, raised, and slaughtered each year is on the rise, resulting in increasing impacts to welfare. Farmed animals are also becoming more diverse, ranging from pigs to bees. The diversity and number of species farmed invites questions about how best to allocate currently limited resources towards safeguarding and improving welfare. This is of the utmost concern to animal welfare funders and effective altruism advocates, who are responsible for targeting the areas most likely to cause harm. For example, is tail docking worse for pigs than beak trimming is for chickens in terms of their pain, suffering, and general experience? Or are the welfare impacts equal? Answering these questions requires making an interspecies welfare comparison; a judgment about how good or bad different species fare relative to one another. Here, we outline and discuss an empirically-based methodology that aims to improve our ability to make interspecies welfare comparisons by investigating welfare range, which refers to how good or bad animals can fare. We begin our proposal with a theory of welfare. We operationalize that theory of welfare by identifying metrics that are defensible proxies for measuring welfare, including cognitive, affective, behavioral, and neuro-biological measures. We assign differential weights to those proxies that reflect their evidential value for the determinants of welfare, such as the “Delphi'' structured deliberation method with a panel of experts. Then we review the evidence and score its quality to ascertain whether a particular taxa may possess the proxies in question to construct a taxa-level welfare range profile. Finally, we use a Monte Carlo simulation to generate an overall estimate of comparative welfare range relative to our hypothetical index species - humans. Interspecies welfare comparisons will help facilitate empirically informed decision-making to streamline the allocation of resources and to ultimately better prioritize and improve animal welfare.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Method for Improving Interspecies Welfare Comparisons

Gaffney¹,

Lavery²,

Schiestl³

et al. 2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This anthropocentrism is present throughout animal welfare science. For example, many welfare indicators are validated using humans as a form of gold standard (e.g., Mendl et al, 2022). However, such decisions about which proxies to examine may introduce unconscious biases towards or against certain options and may indeed miss entire categories of proxies relevant for detecting differences in welfare ranges between taxa.…”

Section: Unknownmentioning

confidence: 99%

A theoretical approach to improving interspecies welfare comparisons

Gaffney¹,

Lavery²,

Schiestl³

et al. 2023

Front. Anim. Sci.

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The number of animals bred, raised, and slaughtered each year is on the rise, resulting in increasing impacts to welfare. Farmed animals are also becoming more diverse, ranging from pigs to bees. The diversity and number of species farmed invite questions about how best to allocate currently limited resources towards safeguarding and improving welfare. This is of the utmost concern to animal welfare funders and effective altruism advocates, who are responsible for targeting the areas most likely to cause harm. For example, is tail docking worse for pigs than beak trimming is for chickens in terms of their pain, suffering, and general experience? Or are the welfare impacts equal? Answering these questions requires making an interspecies welfare comparison; a judgment about how good or bad different species fare relative to one another. Here, we outline and discuss an empirical methodology that aims to improve our ability to make interspecies welfare comparisons by investigating welfare range, which refers to how good or bad animals can fare. Beginning with a theory of welfare, we operationalize that theory by identifying metrics that are defensible proxies for measuring welfare, including cognitive, affective, behavioral, and neuro-biological measures. Differential weights are assigned to those proxies that reflect their evidential value for the determinants of welfare, such as the Delphi structured deliberation method with a panel of experts. The evidence should then be reviewed and its quality scored to ascertain whether particular taxa may possess the proxies in question to construct a taxon-level welfare range profile. Finally, using a Monte Carlo simulation, an overall estimate of comparative welfare range relative to a hypothetical index species can be generated. Interspecies welfare comparisons will help facilitate empirically informed decision-making to streamline the allocation of resources and ultimately better prioritize and improve animal welfare.

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“…to have feelings). Hence, because in most mammals, these interactions are often considered to be less well developed than in humans [although this might not be true for all mammals, such as non‐human primates (Barrett et al ., 2007)], most non‐human mammals may not be as consciously aware of their emotions as humans (Le Neindre et al ., 2017; Paul et al ., 2020; Kret, Massen & De Waal, 2022; Mendl, Neville & Paul, 2022). If this is the case, it would mean that most mammals would not be able to evaluate or analyse their affective experiences to determine their cause in the same way that humans can.…”

Section: The Physiology Of Welfarementioning

confidence: 99%

Capturing wild animal welfare: a physiological perspective

Beaulieu

2023

Biological Reviews

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Affective states, such as emotions, are presumably widespread across the animal kingdom because of the adaptive advantages they are supposed to confer. However, the study of the affective states of animals has thus far been largely restricted to enhancing the welfare of animals managed by humans in non‐natural contexts. Given the diversity of wild animals and the variable conditions they can experience, extending studies on animal affective states to the natural conditions that most animals experience will allow us to broaden and deepen our general understanding of animal welfare. Yet, this same diversity makes examining animal welfare in the wild highly challenging. There is therefore a need for unifying theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches that can guide researchers keen to engage in this promising research area. The aim of this article is to help advance this important research area by highlighting the central relationship between physiology and animal welfare and rectify its apparent oversight, as revealed by the current scientific literature on wild animals. Moreover, this article emphasises the advantages of including physiological markers to assess animal welfare in the wild (e.g. objectivity, comparability, condition range, temporality), as well as their concomitant limitations (e.g. only access to peripheral physiological markers with complex relationships with affective states). Best‐practice recommendations (e.g. replication and multifactorial approaches) are also provided to allow physiological markers to be used most effectively and appropriately when assessing the welfare of animals in their natural habitat. This review seeks to provide the foundation for a new and distinct research area with a vast theoretical and applied potential: wild animal welfare physiology.

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Bridging the Gap: Human Emotions and Animal Emotions

Cited by 25 publications

References 101 publications

A Method for Improving Interspecies Welfare Comparisons

A Method for Improving Interspecies Welfare Comparisons

A theoretical approach to improving interspecies welfare comparisons

Capturing wild animal welfare: a physiological perspective

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