In recent years, animal advocacy organizations have increasingly relied on undercover videos to expose poor conditions on factory farms and generate public support for their cause. These videos, often captured secretly in industrial farming operations, aim to provide unfiltered evidence of animal mistreatment to viewers. Animal rights groups see them as a powerful and cost-effective way to overcome resource constraints, boost credibility, and capture public attention in a crowded information landscape.

While activists believe these videos are crucial for raising awareness and inspiring action, there’s been limited research on their actual impact. Do they really increase public support for animal welfare initiatives? And if so, is it primarily due to the strong emotions they evoke? A team of researchers set out to answer these questions through a large-scale experimental study.

The study, conducted by researchers from the University of Toulouse, involved a representative sample of over 3,300 participants from France. The researchers designed an online experiment to measure both the overall effect of exposure to an undercover video and the specific role that emotions might play in driving engagement.

Participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups:

1. A control group that saw no video;
2. A group that watched a 90-second undercover video showing poor conditions on a pig farm; and
3. A group that watched the same video followed by a five-minute ‘cooling-off’ period, during which time they completed an unrelated survey about travel preferences before continuing.

All participants then answered questions about their emotional state and were given the option to donate money to animal welfare charities or to increase the visibility of petitions supporting animal causes.

The results showed that watching the undercover video did have a significant positive impact on support for animal welfare initiatives. Compared to the control group, participants who saw the video increased their donations by an average of about 4%. This represents a roughly 23% increase in financial support for animal causes.

Looking at specific initiatives, the video seemed to boost support most for more moderate animal welfare reforms rather than the most radical changes. The largest increases in donations were seen for:

• An organization promoting more plant-based meals in university cafeterias (a boost of about 7 percentage points)
• A group supporting farmers in improving animal welfare practices (a boost of about 7 percentage points)
• A petition calling for a ban on intensive farming (a boost of about 10 percentage points)

It’s important to note that, in France, banning intensive farming is already a popular policy with about 84% of the population supporting it.

The video didn’t significantly increase donations to the organization that actually produced it (likely because participants weren’t told its origin). However, it did generate more support for that group’s policy goals, like banning factory farming.

The study also found that the video worked to attract new donors, not just to increase giving from those already supportive. For example, the percentage of participants willing to donate anything at all increased by about 9% for the plant-based meals initiative and about 10% for the petition against intensive farming.

However, when it came to the role of emotions, the results were less clear-cut. The video did produce strong negative emotional reactions in viewers, particularly increasing feelings of sadness, anger, and disgust while decreasing happiness. But the researchers couldn’t conclusively prove that these emotions were directly responsible for the increase in donations and support.

Even after emotions had faded in the group given the chance to ‘cool off’ while completing the unrelated survey, their level of donations remained higher than the control group. The study estimates that emotions might account for about a third of the video’s impact on donations, but there’s a lot of uncertainty around this figure. The researchers conclude that while emotions likely play some role, they may not be as central to driving engagement as previously thought.

The study does have some limitations. The controlled experimental setting may not fully capture how people engage with these videos in real-world contexts where there might be more distractions or counter arguments from industry. Additionally, the research only looked at immediate reactions and didn’t explore the long-term impact of exposure to such footage.

For animal advocates, these findings suggest that undercover videos can be an effective tool for generating public support and donations. However, the impact may not rely solely on provoking an immediate emotional reaction. Instead, these videos might work by shifting people’s understanding of farming practices and their longer-term attitudes toward animal welfare.

Future research could explore how repeated exposure to undercover videos affects public attitudes over time or how different types of footage and messaging strategies compare in their effectiveness. This study provides valuable evidence that these undercover investigations can indeed increase public support for animal welfare initiatives, even if the exact mechanisms aren’t fully understood.