Speciesism in everyday language

Abstract

The methods, data, and analysis script are available via the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/nzsr3/).

Changing minds about minds: Evidence that people are too sceptical about animal sentience

“…That is, given exactly the same information, participants' beliefs about animals came to be more inaccurate and more skewed towards believing they did not have minds compared to their beliefs about humans. These findings align with work that documents the tendency to deny animals' minds (Bastian and Loughnan, 2017;Bastian et al, 2012;Loughnan & Davies, 2020) and to represent them as less worthy of moral concern compared to humans (Caviola et al, 2018(Caviola et al, , 2022Leach et al, 2022).…”

“…Study 3 also examined a potentially-important moderator, namely, whether the accuracy of peoples' beliefs depends on if the animal is culturally-defined as a source of food or as a companion (Bastian et al, 2012;Bratanova et al, 2011). Informed by our prior findings and work that documents beliefs about humans' supremacy over animals (Caviola et al, 2018;Dunayer, 2004;Herzog, 2010;Joy, 2010;Leach, Kitchin, et al, 2022;Singer, 1975Singer, , 2009, we again predicted that participants would show a tendency to underestimate the minds of pigs. In addition, work highlighting the tendency for people to anthropomorphize companion animals (Bartz et al, 2016;Waytz, Morewedge, et al, 2010) led us to predict that participants would overestimate dog minds, and that this overestimation would be greater than equivalent tendency for pigs.…”

“…Study 4 sought to investigate just how far this might extend by examining an important boundary condition: human minds. Off the back of work that documents beliefs about humans' supremacy over animals (Caviola et al, 2018;Dunayer, 2004;Herzog, 2010;Joy, 2010;Leach, Kitchin, et al, 2022;Singer, 1975Singer, , 2009, we predicted that participants would show a greater tendency to underestimate the minds of animals than they would the minds of humans.…”

“…In keeping with this idea, people prefer humans to be distinct from other animals (Goldenberg et al, 2001;Hodson, Dhont, & Earle, 2020) and find it offensive to be likened to them (Haslam, Loughnan, & Sun, 2011). They also tend to speak and write about animals in a way that represents them as less worthy of moral concern compared to humans (Leach, Kitchin, Sutton, & Dhont, 2022;Sealey & Oakley, 2013).…”

“…This entailed that participants would update too far in response to clues that suggest pigs have minds but not far enough in response to clues that suggest pigs lack minds. Based on work that documents speciesist beliefs about human superiority over animals (Caviola et al, 2018;Dunayer, 2004;Herzog, 2010;Joy, 2010;Leach, Kitchin, et al, 2022;Singer, 1975Singer, , 2009, we derived the competing prediction that participants would show a general tendency to underestimate pig minds. This entailed that participants would update too far in response to clues that suggest pigs lack minds but not far enough in response to clues that suggest pigs have minds.…”