How do children value animals? A developmental review

Neldner, Karri; Wilks, Matti

doi:10.5964/phair.9907

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 40 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Interestingly, people's perceptions of the moral standing of animals seem to diminish from childhood into adulthood [44]. The authors suggest that young children have an innate tendency to include animals in their moral circle, but social influences during adolescence lead to the prioritisation of humans over animals.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring Compassion towards Laboratory Animals in UK- and China-Based Undergraduate Biomedical Sciences Students

Fitzpatrick,

Romanò,

Menzies

2023

Animals

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Taking a compassionate approach to the non-human animals used in biomedical research is in line with emerging ideas around a “culture of care”. It is important to expose biomedical sciences students to the concept of a culture of care at an early stage and give them opportunities to explore related practices and ideas. However, there is no simple tool to explore biomedical sciences students’ attitudes towards laboratory animals. Accordingly, there is little understanding of students’ feelings towards these animals, or a means of quantifying potential changes to these feelings. We developed a 12-item questionnaire designed to explore compassion (the Laboratory Animal Compassion Scale; LACS) and used it with UK-based and China-based samples of undergraduate biomedical sciences students. In the same samples, we also explored a harm–benefit analysis task and students’ beliefs regarding some mental characteristics of laboratory animals, then drew correlations with the quantitative measure of compassion. Compassion levels were stable across years of study and were not related to students’ level of experience of working with laboratory animals. We observed a higher level of compassion in females versus males overall, and a higher level overall in the UK-based versus China-based sample. In a task pitting animal suffering against human wellbeing, students’ compassion levels correlated negatively with their acceptance of animal suffering. Compassion levels correlated positively with a belief in animals being conscious and possessing emotions. These data are in line with studies that show compassion is gender- and nationality/culture-dependent, and points to links between compassion, beliefs, and choices.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring Compassion towards Laboratory Animals in UK- and China-Based Undergraduate Biomedical Sciences Students

Fitzpatrick,

Romanò,

Menzies

2023

Animals

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Although this is a substantial expansion of previous research, the generalizability of the findings is still limited. For example, participants may respond differently to dangerous or scary animals (Piazza et al, 2014;Prokop et al, 2021;Neldner & Wilks, 2022), or depending on culture (Hofstede, 2010;Uz, 2015;Muthukrishna et al, 2020).…”

Section: Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Much of the work in this domain has focused on adults' judgments. Only recently has research begun to examine how children think about the moral status of animals (Collado et al, 2022;Henseler Kozachenko & Piazza, 2021;Hussar & Harris, 2018;McGuire et al, 2022a;McGuire et al, 2022b;Neldner et al, 2018;Neldner et al, 2023;Neldner & Wilks, 2022;Piazza et al, 2023;Wilks & Caviola et al, 2021). In a recent study, Wilks and colleagues (2021) found that US American children prioritized humans over animals to a lesser extent than US American adults.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Children Value Animals More Than Adults Do: A Conceptual Replication and Extension

Paruzel-Czachura,

Maier,

Warmuz

et al. 2024

Pers Soc Psychol Bull

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Recent psychological research finds that U.S. American children have a weaker tendency than U.S. American adults to value humans more than animals. We aimed to conceptually replicate and extend this finding in a preregistered study ( N = 412). We investigated whether 6- to 9-year-old Polish children (Study 1a) are less likely to prioritize humans over animals than Polish adults are (Studies 1b and 1c). We presented participants with moral dilemmas where they had to prioritize either humans or animals (dogs or chimpanzees) in situations that involved harming (i.e., a trolley problem) or benefiting (i.e., giving a snack). We found that Polish children prioritized humans over animals less than Polish adults did. This was the case both in dilemmas that involved preventing harm and in dilemmas that involved providing snacks. Both children and adults prioritized humans over chimpanzees more than humans over dogs.

show abstract

Section: Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Children Value Animals More than Adults do — a Conceptual Replication and Extension

Paruzel‐Czachura¹,

Maier²,

Warmuz³

et al. 2023

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Recent psychological research finds that American children have a weaker tendency than American adults to value humans more than animals. We aimed to conceptually replicate and extend this finding across two preregistered experiments (total N = 812). We investigated whether 6-9-year-old Polish children (Study 1a) are less likely to prioritize humans over animals than Polish adults are (Studies 1b, 1c). We presented participants with moral dilemmas where they had to prioritize either humans or animals (dogs or chimpanzees) in situations that involved harming (i.e., the trolley problem) or benefitting (i.e., giving a snack). We found that Polish children prioritized humans over animals less than Polish adults did. This was the case both in dilemmas that involved preventing harm and in dilemmas that involved providing snacks. Both children and adults prioritized humans over chimpanzees more than humans over dogs. We compared Polish and US American adults (Study 2) to examine possible differences across cultures. We found that Polish adults (Study 1b) had a slightly weaker tendency to prioritize humans over animals than American adults did (Study 2). Our cross-study analysis tentatively suggests that Polish children prioritized humans over animals slightly more than American children did. Our research provides further support for the claim that children have a weaker tendency than adults do to value humans more than animals, which was true both for harming and benefitting scenarios.

show abstract

How do children value animals? A developmental review

Cited by 5 publications

References 40 publications

Exploring Compassion towards Laboratory Animals in UK- and China-Based Undergraduate Biomedical Sciences Students

Exploring Compassion towards Laboratory Animals in UK- and China-Based Undergraduate Biomedical Sciences Students

Children Value Animals More Than Adults Do: A Conceptual Replication and Extension

Children Value Animals More than Adults do — a Conceptual Replication and Extension

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About