Social Dominance Connects Prejudicial Human–Human And Human–Animal Relations

The authors of this study proposed to test an Interspecies Model of Prejudice, in which dominating and abusive behavior by humans towards non-humans is related to similar treatment by humans of other, outgroup humans, who are often characterized in animalistic terms. 191 Canadian undergraduate psychology students were surveyed to measure their SDO (Social Dominance Orientation, or preference for hierarchical social structure) and speciesism. There was a strong correlation between high scores on both measures. The authors conclude that a desire for group-based dominance and inequality lies at the core of both ethnic prejudice and speciesism.

“Recent theorizing suggests that biases toward human outgroups may be related to biases toward (non-human) animals, and that individual differences in desire for group dominance and nequality may underlie associations between these biases. The present investigation directly tests these assumptions. As expected, the results of the current study (N = 191) demonstrate that endorsing speciesist attitudes is significantly and positively associated with negative attitudes toward ethnic outgroups. Importantly, individual differences in social dominance orientation accounted for the association between speciesist and ethnic outgroup attitudes; that is, these variables are associated due to their common association with social dominance orientation that underpins these biases. We conclude that social dominance orientation represents a critical individual difference variable underlying ideological belief systems and attitudes pertaining to both human–human intergroup and human–animal relations.”