Justifying Attitudes toward Animal Use: A Qualitative Study of People's Views and Beliefs

Abstract

Animal use" is a contentious topic that refers to practices involving the utilization of non-human animals by human beings. These practices often evoke strong and emotional reactions from opposing parties, and individuals can hold incongruent views concerning different ways in which animals are used. Yet previous research in this area has tended to portray attitudes toward animal use as uni-dimensional (rather than distinguishing between different types of use), and the field has been dominated by quantitative approaches that focus on participant characteristics such as gender, age, and so on, in order to explain variance in people's views on this topic. The present study assumed that attitudes are not uni-dimensional and applied Grounded Theory Methodology in order to determine psychological factors that underlie people's views concerning animal use issues. Eight participant-led interviews explored the factors that people consider when rationalizing their attitudes toward the use of animals, and interview transcripts were analyzed with an aim to understanding why attitudes vary depending upon the type of animal use in question. Three key themes were identified, labelled as "type of animal used," "purpose of animal use," and "knowledge of animal use." These represent beliefs concerning animals and animal use, and help explain why people can support some animal use practices whilst opposing others. We conclude that taking a psychological approach in order to further examine the beliefs that underlie attitudes provides a way forward for future research.

Adaptação da Escala de Empatia com Animais (EEA) para a população portuguesa

“…Fatores como o sexo (Paul, 2000), a vivência com animais de estimação (Ellingsen et al, 2010;Furnham, McManus, & Scott, 2003;Paul, 2000;Paul & Serpell, 1993), a personalidade (Mathews & Herzog, 1997), a utilidade do animal (Knight & Barnett, 2008;Wells & Hepper, 1997), bem como a crença nas capacidades mentais dos animais (Apostol, Rebega, & Miclea 2013;Hills, 1995) têm sido assinalados como tendo uma importante influência na empatia, sobretudo quando relacionados com as atitudes para com os animais.…”

Brazilian attitudes towards the use of animals in research

“…First, comments were compared to Likert responses and classified as: support regardless of other factors (SR), conditional support (CS), no support (NS), and uncertain or indifference (UN). Comments were grouped into themes extracted from respondents' answers following the methods described by Knight and Barnett (2008). All themes were evaluated according to the emphasis given by the respondents, and one comment can have more than one identified theme.…”

“…Interestingly, participants did not raise concerns around the need for alternative approaches in the BS when the use of non-GM animals was proposed. Knight and Barnett (2008) identified that support of some participants for the use of animals in medical research was based upon the belief that there were no suitable alternatives to using animals. Greek et al (2010) concluded that people are more likely to support the use of animals if the research is likely to aid in the treatment and decrease the suffering of human patients, but that people are less likely to support animal use in basic research.…”

Fundamental Moral Attitudes to Animals and Their Role in Judgment: An Empirical Model to Describe Fundamental Moral Attitudes to Animals and Their Role in Judgment on the Culling of Healthy Animals During an Animal Disease Epidemic

“…It is moral because it tells us something about the right or the wrong way to treat animals, whose welfare and flourishing can be promoted or harmed by our actions. The word attitude to animals is already used in studies to describe people's views on animals and their treatment (Knight and Barnett 2008;Matthews and Herzog 1997;Serpell 2004) and therefore it makes sense to use a term that is already in use. We defined fundamental moral attitude as the fundamental convictions of a person, or a group of people, on the hierarchical position of animals, their value, doing good (to care for and protect), and their rights.…”

“…Knight et al 2003, andBarnett 2008) found that the degree of mental abilities of animals were one determinant in people's attitude to animals. The more mentally developed and sentient an animal species is the least acceptable is its use for human purposes.…”