Attitudes to animal use of named species for different purposes: effects of speciesism, individualising morality, likeability and demographic factors

The study addresses how speciesism (assigning different moral worth based on species membership), individualising morality (care/harm and fairness/reciprocity foundations), species likeability, and demographic/lifestyle factors shape attitudes toward animal use. Prior work shows discrepancies between professed concern for animals and behaviors (e.g., pet protection versus meat consumption), with attitudes influenced by species type, purpose of use, likeability, gender, age, and diet. Non-meat-eaters tend to attribute higher mental capacities to animals, suggesting less dementalization of certain species. The present research aims to integrate standardized measures—the Animal Purpose Questionnaire (APQ), the Speciesism Scale, species likeability ratings, and the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ) individualising subscales—along with demographics, to test whether higher individualising morality, greater likeability of animals, and weaker speciesism predict lower agreement with animal use across multiple species and purposes. The study also explores patterns by species and purpose and examines associations among speciesism, morality, likeability, and demographics.

- Species and purpose of use: Attitudes depend on species, perceived mental capacity, familiarity, attractiveness, and whether uses benefit humans or have alternatives. Use for medical research tends to be more acceptable than for decoration. Increased knowledge of use is associated with greater welfare concern. The APQ was designed to systematically compare species-by-purpose attitudes. - Speciesism: The Speciesism Scale (Caviola et al., 2019) captures prejudice based on species membership, distinct from beliefs about sentience or utility. Speciesism correlates with socio-ideological constructs and prosocial behavior toward animals. - Likeability: Emotional appeal (cuteness, warmth, competence), familiarity, and human similarity drive species evaluations and willingness to support species’ survival. Companion animals are typically most positively viewed; pests and some farm animals less so. Likeability may heighten moral concern but can interact with cultural roles (pet/food/pest) and emotional priming. - Morality: MFQ individualising foundations (care/harm, fairness/reciprocity) relate to environmentalism, attitudes toward the poor, and liberal political orientation. Individualising morality has been linked to support for sustainable and welfare-friendly livestock practices, suggesting overlap in mechanisms underlying human-human and human-animal relations.

Ethics: Approved by University of Nottingham School of Psychology Ethics Committee (Refs: 994R, S1021). Participants were informed that scenarios were hypothetical; consent and anonymity assured. Participants and recruitment: 402 respondents; 82 excluded for not completing APQ; final N=320. Predominantly recruited via social media and survey platforms (convenience sampling), plus a university research participation scheme. Gender: 77.81% female (10 excluded from gender analyses for Other/Prefer not to say). Mean age 26.18 years (SD=9.7; range 18–64); 70.63% aged 18–25. Demographics included eating orientation (64.38% omnivore), education, pet ownership (ever owned 90.63%), scientific training (18.44%), and experience working with animals (22.81%). Procedure: Online Qualtrics survey (12/04/2020–02/12/2021) presenting questionnaires in fixed order on single pages; debrief and withdrawal contacts provided. Measures: - APQ: 12 species (pet/companion: cat, dog, horse, rabbit; pest: pigeon, rat, spider, wasp; profit: chicken, cow, deer, shrimp). Five purposes: medical research, sport, food production, culling/population control, fashion/ornamentation. 5-point agreement scale (1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree; lower scores indicate more pro-welfare attitudes). Order: purposes fixed; species randomized. Internal consistency α=0.973. - Likeability: 12 species rated from −2 (strongly dislike) to +2 (like strongly), 0=uncertain; averaged across species for overall likeability. Species order randomized. α=0.743. - MFQ individualising subscales: 12 items (care/harm, fairness/reciprocity). Six relevance items (0–5) and six agreement items (0–5). Subscale totals 0–30; higher = greater emphasis on individualising morality. α=0.781. - Speciesism Scale: Six statements on moral treatment of animals; 7-point Likert scored 0–6, one reverse-scored item; higher total = weaker speciesist attitudes. α=0.779. - Demographics: Gender, age, education, eating orientation, pet ownership, experience with animals, scientific training. Coded for regression (e.g., female/meat-eating coded 1; non-meat-eating coded 2; education ascending 1–5). Design and analysis: IBM SPSS 26. Repeated-measures ANOVAs for likeability (species; species category) and APQ (species × purpose; species category). Bonferroni corrections applied. Pearson correlations among APQ totals, likeability, speciesism, morality, and age. Independent-samples t-tests for gender (male/female) and eating orientation (meat-eater vs non-meat-eater). Multiple hierarchical linear regression predicting APQ total from demographics (Step 1: gender, age, eating orientation), additional lifestyle variables (Step 2: pet ownership, work with animals, scientific training, education), and then key predictors (Steps 3–5: speciesism, individualising morality, likeability). Also ran a single-step model entering all predictors simultaneously. Power and collinearity checks reported; dataset available (DOI: 10.17639/nott.7184).

- Likeability ANOVAs: - Species effect: F(9,2721)=344.11, ηp²=0.52, p<0.001; dogs most liked; pets liked most; pests least liked. Several cross-category pairs showed no difference (e.g., cat≈deer, horse≈cow, rabbit≈deer). - Species category effect: F(2,554)=1054.8, p<0.001 (η² reported as 0.77). Pets liked strongly; profit species moderately; pests disliked. - APQ ANOVAs: - Species main effect: F(6,1954)=109.93, ηp²=0.26, p<0.001. - Purpose main effect: F(3,898)=251.8, ηp²=0.44, p<0.001. - Species×Purpose interaction: F(19,5988)=100.39, ηp²=0.24, p<0.001. - Mean agreement by purpose (lower = more disagreement): medical research 2.97 (SEM 0.064); sport 1.84 (0.047); food production 2.40 (0.05); culling 2.35 (0.056); fashion/ornamentation 1.48 (0.038). All pairwise differences significant except food production vs culling. - Patterns: Highest acceptance for food use of cow/chicken/shrimp; medical research use most accepted for pest species; more acceptance of horses for sport relative to other species; broad disagreement with fashion/ornamentation for all species. - Species category on APQ: F(2,492)=143.91, ηp²=0.31, p<0.001; more disagreement with pet use than profit (p<0.001) or pest (p<0.001); no difference profit vs pest (p=0.78). - Correlations (N≈318–319; p<0.001): APQ vs speciesism r=−0.638 (higher speciesism score = weaker speciesism); APQ vs likeability r=−0.195; likeability vs speciesism r=0.238; APQ vs individualising morality r=−0.408; speciesism vs individualising morality r=0.468. - Gender t-tests: Males higher APQ (M=30.33, SEM=1.12) than females (M=25.61, SEM=0.54), t(308)=3.87, p<0.001. Females higher MFQ individualising (M=46.92, SEM=0.44) than males (M=42.38, SEM=1.04), t(308)=4.4, p<0.001; also higher on speciesism scale (weaker speciesism) (female M=27.09, SEM=0.44; male M=22.8, SEM=0.93), t(308)=4.33, p<0.001. No gender difference in likeability, t(308)=0.641, p=0.522. - Eating orientation t-tests: Meat-eaters higher APQ (M=28.19, SEM=0.5) than non-meat-eaters (M=18.13, SEM=0.88), t(89)=9.93, p<0.001. Non-meat-eaters showed weaker speciesism (M=31.36, SEM=0.75 vs 25.19, SEM=0.43), t(90)=7.11, p<0.001; higher likeability (M=9.72, SEM=0.73 vs 5.46, SEM=0.34), t(308)=5.17, p<0.001; higher MFQ individualising (M=48.6, SEM=1.12 vs 45.75, SEM=0.43), t(308)=2.64, p=0.009; care subscale significant, harm subscale not. - Age correlations: Age vs APQ r=0.144, N=317, p=0.01 (older = higher agreement with animal use); Age vs speciesism r=−0.157, N=317, p=0.005 (older = relatively higher speciesism). No significant relations with likeability or morality. - Hierarchical regression predicting APQ total (N=296): - Step 1 (gender, eating orientation, age): R²=22.33% (Adj 21.53%). Gender positive; eating orientation negative; age not significant. - Step 2 (add pet ownership, work with animals, scientific training, education): +2.55% variance; only scientific training significant (p=0.043). - Step 3 (add speciesism): +28.73% variance; significant negative relation. - Step 4 (add individualising morality): +2.61% variance; significant negative relation. - Step 5 (add likeability): no additional variance; not significant. - Final model: F(10,285)=36.62; R²=56.23% (Adj 54.7%). Speciesism strongest individual predictor. - Single-step regression: Speciesism and individualising morality significant predictors; gender and scientific training not significant; working with animals significant, suggesting possible indirect/mediated effects. - Notable pattern: Attitudes to cows’ use did not differ from pest animals, despite cows’ mammalian status, aligning with potential dementalization of food animals.

Findings support the hypotheses that fewer speciesist attitudes and stronger individualising moral values correspond to greater concern for animal welfare (lower APQ agreement). Speciesism emerged as the dominant predictor of attitudes across diverse species and purposes, indicating that human vs non-human and pet vs non-pet distinctions are central prejudices influencing views on animal use. Individualising morality also contributed uniquely, suggesting that general respect for others’ rights in human contexts extends to animals, evidencing shared psychological mechanisms across human-human and human-animal moral judgments. Likeability correlated with attitudes but added little predictive value in the multivariable model, likely because overall likeability averages across very heterogeneous species, including disliked pests, and because cultural roles (pet, pest, profit/food) and cognitive dissonance processes (dementalization) can dampen the influence of likeable traits, especially for food animals. Demographic patterns replicated prior work: females and non-meat-eaters showed greater welfare concern, weaker speciesism, and higher individualising morality; older age associated with higher agreement with animal use and relatively higher speciesism. Acceptance varied strongly by purpose, with medical research most accepted and fashion/ornamentation least, and by species category, with greatest disagreement for pets’ use. These results collectively demonstrate that standardized measures of speciesism and morality meaningfully explain attitudes to animal use beyond demographics and species likeability.

The study integrates measures of speciesism, individualising morality, species likeability, and demographics to explain attitudes toward the use of a broad set of named animal species for multiple purposes. Speciesism was the strongest predictor of APQ attitudes, with individualising morality and eating orientation also contributing, while likeability added little incremental predictive value in the regression model. Participants least supported using pet species and were relatively more neutral about profit and pest species; acceptance varied by purpose, being highest for medical research and lowest for fashion/ornamentation. The results suggest that general respect for others’ rights in human contexts predicts respect for animal rights, indicating shared psychological underpinnings across human-human and human-animal relations. Future research should: (1) examine cross-cultural differences using context-appropriate species lists or more general scales (e.g., AAS) alongside MFQ and speciesism; (2) analyze species category–specific models to clarify when likeability predicts attitudes; (3) expand species and purposes to reduce category ambiguities and increase generalizability; and (4) investigate mediating mechanisms (e.g., dementalization, cultural roles) and potential indirect effects of training or animal work experience.

- Sampling bias: Predominantly young, female, highly educated participants with high pet ownership; limits generalizability. - Scope of APQ: Only 12 common species and 5 purposes; may not capture attitudes toward unusual or culturally specific species. - Category ambiguity: Some species straddle categories (e.g., rats as pet/pest; deer less commonly eaten), reducing validity of category-level analyses. - Cultural variability: MFQ assumes universality, but cultural norms shape moral expression; fixed species lists are not equally valid cross-culturally. - Aggregation effects: Using overall likeability and APQ totals may obscure species- or purpose-specific relationships and add noise, especially where pests are actively disliked. - Recruitment methods (convenience sampling) may have attracted participants with stronger views on animal issues.