When Closing the Human–Animal Divide Expands Moral Concern

Abstract

Humans and animals share many similarities. Across three studies, the authors demonstrate that the framing of these similarities has significant consequences for people's moral concern for others. Comparing animals to humans expands moral concern and reduces speciesism; however, comparing humans to animals does not appear to produce these same effects. The authors find these differences when focusing on natural tendencies to frame human-animal similarities (Study 1) and following experimental induction of framings (Studies 2 and 3). In Study 3, the authors extend their focus from other animals to marginalized human outgroups, demonstrating that human-animal similarity framing also has consequences for the extension of moral concern to other humans. The authors explain these findings by reference to previous work examining the effects of framing on judgments of similarity and self-other comparisons and discuss them in relation to the promotion of animal welfare and the expansion of moral concern.

Toward a psychology of human–animal relations.

“…In support of these ideas, inducing perceived similarity between humans and animals experimentally leads to a cognitive broadening and to a recategorization at a very broad and inclusive level. For example, participants asked to read an editorial about how animals are similar to humans reported lower prejudice against (outgroup) human immigrants (Costello & Hodson, 2010) and marginalized groups of humans (Bastian, Costello, et al, 2012) in comparison to participants who read an editorial about how humans are similar to animals. The researchers interpreted these findings as indicating that thinking of how animals are similar to humans broadens the cognitive field, cuts dehumanization at its core, and leads to a recategorization of humans and animals into a very broad super ordinate group that automatically encapsulates human outgroups (i.e., immigrants).…”

“…By providing a comprehensive platform for thinking about human-animal rela tions, our aim is to provoke a range of novel research questions, focusing both on the causes and the broader consequences of human-animal relations. In fact, our relations with animals not only have consequences for animals (Pious, 1993a) but also have repercussions for human health (Fine, 2006;Herzog, 2011) and even impact on our associations with fellow humans (Ascione, 1992;Ascione & Weber, 1996;Bastian, Costello, Loughnan, & Hodson, 2012;Costello & Hodson, 2010).…”

The person-based nature of prejudice: Individual difference predictors of intergroup negativity

“…A series of studies (Costello & Hodson, 2010see Hodson, MacInnis, & Costello, 2014) demonstrates that individual differences in perceiving a greater hierarchical divide between humans and non-human animals is associated with anti-immigrant prejudice (see our Table 2), through the facilitation of animalistic outgroup (i.e., human) dehumanisation. Critically, experimentally accentuating animals' similarities to humans, for instance via exposure to editorials (Costello & Hodson, 2010)o r personally writing essays (Bastian, Costello, Loughnan, & Hodson, 2012), significantly reduces dehumanisation and outgroup prejudice (Costello & Hodson, 2010), decreases speciesism, and increases moral inclusiveness towards human outgroups (Bastian et al, 2012). Thus, prejudicial attitudes towards human outgroups are systematically connected to prejudicial attitudes towards non-human outgroups, influenced by both individual differences and contextual manipulations of the human-animal divide.…”

Social dominance orientation connects prejudicial human–human and human–animal relations

“…(Plous, 2003, p. 510). In fact, "elevating" animals to the status of humans by emphasizing their similarity to humans significantly improves attitudes and moral inclusiveness toward human outgroups (Bastian, Costello, Loughnan, & Hodson, 2012;Costello & Hodson, 2010). Thus biases toward human outgroups appear related to biases toward non-human animals, and individual differences in desire for group dominance may underlie any associations between these biases.…”