The moral standing of animals: Towards a psychology of speciesism.

Abstract

We introduce and investigate the philosophical concept of 'speciesism' -the assignment of different moral worth based on species membership -as a psychological construct. In five studies, using both general population samples online and student samples, we show that speciesism is a measurable, stable construct with high interpersonal differences, that goes along with a cluster of other forms of prejudice, and is able to predict real-world decision-making and behavior. In Study 1 we present the development and empirical validation of a theoretically driven Speciesism Scale, which captures individual differences in speciesist attitudes. In Study 2, we show high test-retest reliability of the scale over a period of four weeks, suggesting that speciesism is stable over time. In Study 3, we present positive correlations between speciesism and prejudicial attitudes such as racism, sexism, homophobia, along with ideological constructs associated with prejudice such as social dominance orientation, system justification, and right-wing authoritarianism. These results suggest that similar mechanisms might underlie both speciesism and other well-researched forms of prejudice. Finally, in Studies 4 and 5, we demonstrate that speciesism is able to predict prosociality towards animals (both in the context of charitable donations and time investment) and behavioral food choices above and beyond existing related constructs. Importantly, our studies show that people morally value individuals of certain species less than others even when beliefs about intelligence and sentience are accounted for. We conclude by discussing the implications of a psychological study of speciesism for the psychology of human-animal relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record

Longitudinal effects of human supremacy beliefs and vegetarianism threat on moral exclusion (vs. inclusion) of animals

“…The general impact of human supremacy beliefs on moral exclusion of all animals finds parallels in the generalized effects typically observed for social dominance orientation, reflecting the extent to which an individual prefers social inequality and hierarchy in (human) groups (Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth, & Malle, ; Sidanius & Pratto, ). For instance, those higher in social dominance orientation are not only more likely to endorse racist attitudes (Hodson & Costello, ), they are also more likely to endorse sexist and homophobic attitudes (Kteily et al., ; Meeusen & Dhont, ; Whitley, ; Zick et al., ) as well as speciesist attitudes (Caviola, Everett, & Faber, in press; Dhont, Hodson, Costello, & MacInnis, ; Dhont et al., ). The present findings thus provide further support for the similarities between support for inequality in human‐human and human–animal relations, by showing that beliefs in superiority over animals have negative effects that generalize across different animal categories in similar ways as social dominance orientation has generic effects on attitudes towards human outgroups.…”

The Speciesism Debate: Intuition, Method, and Empirical Advances

“…There are various definitions of speciesism in circulation in the academic literature (contrast [1,2,7]) and beyond. Some authors treat speciesism as an unjustified position by definition [8].…”

“…One reason why this is a mistake, I will argue in Section 3, has to do with the different epistemic statuses of intuitions: if we know that a given moral intuition comes about through a process that typically gives rise to cognitive biases, then this detracts from the plausibility of the intuition. Moreover, while further research is called for, there is preliminary experimental evidence that at least some speciesist intuitions indeed come about through processes typically associated with cognitive biases [2,7] (Appendix A, 5).…”

“…This is because speciesist intuitions, just like racist and sexist intuitions (which are common targets of EDAs in applied ethics), are self-serving: having such intuitions typically benefits the individual having them, irrespective of their truth or justification. Indeed, preliminary evidence from psychology suggests that similar mechanisms underlie both speciesism and other forms of prejudice: there is a positive correlation between speciesism and prejudicial attitudes such as racism, sexism, and homophobia [7].…”

“…The question of the extent to which 'the folk' endorses speciesism, and of people's rationales for endorsing speciesism, is currently under-researched [7]. Further research on these questions is an important direction to advance the speciesism debate.…”