Individual Difference and Study-Specific Characteristics Influencing Attitudes about the Use of Animals in Medical Research

Abstract

Research has shown that both individual diff erence characteristics (e.g., sex, attachment to pets) and study-specifi c characteristics (e.g., type of animal used) infl uence the extent to which people support or oppose the use of animals in research. Th e current study examined how three studyspecifi c characteristics (type of animal used, level of harm to the animal, and severity of the disease being investigated) infl uenced attitudes toward the use of animals in biomedical research. Participants read one of 27 scenarios describing the use of an animal in research. Scenarios systematically varied each of the study-specifi c characteristics described above. Participants then completed a survey to assess their support for, or opposition to, the research described. Data on attachment to pets and attitudes toward the treatment of animals were also collected. Analysis of variance revealed signifi cant main eff ects for each of the study-specifi c characteristics. Multiple regression analyses revealed that the individual diff erence and study-specifi c characteristics accounted for 49% of the variability in opposition to the use of animals in biomedical research among men, and 37% among women. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed.

Attitudes toward animals, and how species and purpose affect animal research justifiability, among undergraduate students and faculty

“…These findings are consistent with the suggestion that justifiability is based on a combination of familiarity, phylogeny, and capacities, with different emphasis between students and faculty [30,[35][36][37]. A similar pattern of unequal species-based acceptability of animal research has been reported in other studies as well [18,24,25,31,[38][39][40]. As for purpose, men scored higher than women on justifiability for each species, but student-faculty differences were not significant after accounting for other variables.…”

“…The Ipsos MORI surveys also reported greater acceptance of medical research than testing of chemicals [27]. Other studies have addressed animal research acceptability as a function of experimental purpose, and identify rankings similar to ours, especially lower support for testing of household chemicals or cosmetics [18,24,30,31]; reviewed in [32]. For faculty, justifiability of the study of animal disease, basic research, human disease, and testing human medicines were only slightly different from one another, while for students they were more separated.…”

“…Specifically, there was a strong gender difference, with women less supportive of use of animals by humans than men; less support of animal research by women compared to men has been reported in many other studies [8,[16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]. Henry and Pulcino [18] and Swami and colleagues [26] reported finding similar influences on attitudes about biomedical research using the Attitudes Toward the Treatment of Animals scale, and the Attitudes to Experimentation on Animals scale, respectively.…”

“It’s Not Good for the Animals, but I Think It Should Be Done”—Using Focus Group Interviews to Explore Adolescent Views on Animal Experimentation

“…(3) Most of the scenarios we used focused on medical research, which is the most accepted area of animal experimentation [ 10 , 13 , 28 , 29 ]. Additionally, no species was used in the scenarios which is known to be less accepted (like dogs or non-human primates) [ 28 ].…”

“…(3) Most of the scenarios we used focused on medical research, which is the most accepted area of animal experimentation [ 10 , 13 , 28 , 29 ]. Additionally, no species was used in the scenarios which is known to be less accepted (like dogs or non-human primates) [ 28 ]. Instead, most scenarios stated the use of rodents which are generally the most accepted group for animal experimentation, according to previous surveys [ 9 , 10 ].…”