Research In Progress | Completed Projects | Upcoming Projects | Legacy Projects | Prioritization
These are the main projects currently underway at Faunalytics. Pre-registrations for most projects that have reached the data collection phase can be found on Faunalytics’ Open Science Framework page.
Reduction Targets by Demographic
When it comes to consumers’ engagement with animal protection, there is no one-size-fits-all approach: using a plant-based protein once could be extreme to one person while the one next to them is willing to go vegan and phone their senator about upcoming farmed animal legislation. This study aims to find the best balance of request size versus tractability (the number of people willing to take an action) across a wide range of demographic groups. U.S. participants will indicate their likelihood of taking a range of pro-animal actions that span diet, political actions, and purchases. With the results, we will create a web-based application that models the results in a way that easily enables advocates to compare segments of each country’s populations and identify the optimal ask for each one, minimizing the tradeoff between impact of the change and willingness to try it.
This project is made possible thanks to generous funding from the Culture & Animals Foundation, the Centre for Effective Altruism, and an anonymous donor.
State-by-State Reactions to Potential Legislative Changes
One of the biggest hurdles to getting lawmakers to support or propose welfare legislation is their fear of negative public reaction and its impact on their own political careers. This study will use representative polls in key states and districts to gauge public support for a range of legislative policies dealing primarily with farmed and wild animal welfare. Identifying the regions and issues to target will be done in close collaboration with stakeholders who do this type of work.
This study is made possible by generous funding from the Food Systems Research Fund and an anonymous donor.
Chicken and Fish Substitution Meta-Analysis
Substitution of one animal product for another is always an undesirable outcome for reduction campaigns, but poses a particular problem when a smaller-bodied animal is substituted for a larger one, because of the larger impact in animal lives. For this research, being conducted in collaboration with Dr. Maya Mathur and Rethink Priorities, we will conduct a meta-analysis (an analysis of previously published data) to examine whether there is evidence of a substitution effect across many intervention studies. More specifically–although we will look for substitution across all products–we are most interested in whether the consumption of fish and chicken products increases when the consumption of cow and pig products decrease. If there is evidence of substitution effects, we will also use the available evidence to suggest characteristics of interventions that caused it, and suggest how advocates may be able to avoid them in their campaigns.
This project is made possible thanks to generous funding from the Centre for Effective Altruism and an anonymous donor.
Estimating Social Spread of Advocacy
As animal advocacy efforts expand in developing countries without a strong grassroots history, it is crucial that we measure and attend to the impact of both top-down and bottom-up efforts. This study, in which we will conduct a review of the literature on social network analysis and social contagion theory (about how behavior spreads from person to person) will serve as a first step toward realistic impact measurement for grassroots campaigns. Based on this literature review on studies that parallel veg*n diets, we will produce a hypothesis about the amount of behavior spread (to friends and friends of friends) that veg*n advocates might reasonably expect.
This project is made possible thanks to donations from Faunalytics supporters like you.
