Public Opinion On Environmentalism And Animal Rights Link

Presented at the annual meeting of The Midwest Political Science Association, this research suggests that there is a significant and positive relationship between people’s attitudes about the animal rights movement and their attitudes about the environmental movement.

To fully understand the animal rights movement and its role in the policymaking process, it is essential to determine the sources of public attitudes regarding it and how those attitudes are tied to public opinion about the environmental movement. Because of the natural overlap of the animal rights and environmental movements, some people have suggested that they are components of the same movement.

Although individuals intimately involved with the movements may fully appreciate the inherent contradictions between them, social scientists have failed to examine whether the general public’s attitudes about the environment are significantly correlated with their attitudes about animal rights. The linkage between public opinion on the environmental and animal rights movements must be clarified and understood before we can have a clear idea of how public opinion on these issues influences the policymaking process.

I first examine the influence of a variety of socio-demographic factors on public opinion about animal rights using data from a May 2004 Gallup survey. Next, I explore whether there is a significant relationship between the general public’s opinions on the animal rights movement and their opinions on the environmental movement using three different data sets: an April 2000 Gallup survey, a spring 2001 Kansas Policy Survey, and an October 2004 animal rights conference survey.

I hypothesize that because of the perceived similarity between the animal rights and environmental movements, people will very often view them as the same movement such that people’s attitudes about the environmental movement will be significantly and positively correlated with their attitudes about the animal rights movement. Overall, my research results indicate that there is a significant and positive relationship between people’s attitudes about the animal rights movement and their attitudes about the environmental movement.