Attitudes+Towards+Animals

In many ways, humans treat other animals as if they existed primarily to serve human needs. They are used for a variety of purposes—from providing mere entertainment (circuses, horseracing), to providing an important food source, to serving as valuable metaphors for social relationships (Levi-Strauss, 1966). People show greater discomfort when led to believe they are watching the abuse of an animal similar to humans; they recommend significantly more jail time and larger fines for abusers of these animals, and they prefer to save endangered species most similar to humans (Allen et al., 2002; Plous, 1993). Based on this viewpoint, humans are said to be endowed with creatureliness concerns, which can be understood as anxiety associated with reminders that humans are, in many respects, no more than animals and subject to the same biological conditions and limitations as other life forms. In response, people are motivated to elevate themselves beyond mere animal (and mortal) status; this is partly achieved by investment in a cultural worldview. Moreover, as Beatson and Halloran (2007) pointed out, people share different kinds of relationships with animals; some animals are ordinarily associated with disgust, while others occupy a more favorable position in the human psyche. Pets or companion animals, for example, represent a special category of animals who, according to Hirschman (1994) “reside in an intermediate position between nature and culture” (p. 623). Moreover, they are one group of animals often elevated to human status. Although this effect was not expected, it may be explained by the content of the Creatureliness manipulation, which included the following: “Humans have the capacity for love, generosity, and kindness—putting the welfare of others above themselves.” The most plausible explanation for the more positive attitudes is that the manipulation primed kindness and generosity values, which were endorsed more strongly when mortality was salient. As with human companions, pets elicit strong emotional and behavioral responses among owners. The results suggest that, under control conditions, emphasizing human and animal similarities appears to be an effective means for improving attitudes toward animals. When animal-welfare campaigns make death salient (showing abused or neglected animals close to dying), it may be beneficial to avoid emphasizing human-animal similarities and, instead, to focus on how humankind is uniquely positioned to show kindness and generosity to the creatures who are dependent on us, and the way in which we treat our shared environment. Hirschman (1994) notes that animals serve as ornaments/objects (beautiful fish displays), status symbols, and equipment (in hunting, as guides for the blind, and as consumables in the laboratory). Studies of people’s attitudes toward various species have shown that animals considered more evolutionarily recent and companion animals are given more favorable ratings on a variety of dimensions including attractiveness and mental complexity (Eddy, Gallup, & Povinelli, 1993; Herzog & Galvin, 1997; Hills, 1995). Opotow found that in a high conflict scenario, where destruction of the beetles’ habitat was needed for a reservoir, the similarity prime led to a decrease in the belief that considerations of fairness would apply to the beetle. In contrast, under a low-confl ict scenario (where the habitat was to be destroyed for an unnecessary industrial complex), the similarity prime led participants to extend their scope of justice to include the beetle. Given the elevated status of pets, it is not surprising that several lines of research have shown pet caregivers to have more favorable attitudes toward animals. Given that pets share a unique relationship with humans, we thought it important to test whether the patterns observed for unspecified “animals” (Beatson & Halloran, 2007) and “disgusting” animals (Goldenberg et al., 2001) would be replicated for a category of animals typically embraced by human society. There is also ample evidence from a wide range of disciplines showing a pervasive tendency for humans to view and treat animals as lower status creatures (Cohn, 1996; Plous, 1993; Stibbe, 2001; Vollum, Buffi ngton-Vollum, & Longmir, 2004).
 * Beatson, Ruth, Stephen Loughnan, and Michael Halloran. "Attitudes toward Animals: The Effect of Priming Thoughts of Human-Animal Similarities and Mortality Salience on the Evaluation of Companion Animals." //Society & Animals// 17.1 (2009): 18. Print. **