What Are Effective Interventions To Shift Speciesist Attitudes And Behaviors?

The institutionalized and systematic exploitation of non-human animals is a symptom of speciesism. Speciesism, as defined by the authors of this study, is a bias in favor of the interests of members of one’s own species and against those of members of other species. Speciesist attitudes give rise to speciesist behaviors (both intentions to perform a behavior and actual behavioral responses), which perpetuate harm towards animals.

In this study, the authors investigate whether a common existing intervention is actually successful in shifting speciesist attitudes and behaviors towards reducing harm to animals. The research builds on previous work exploring the effect that exposing participants to images of animals had on their willingness to consume animal products. Studied here is the efficacy of a strategy to shift general attitudes and behaviors in which participants are shown artistic renditions (mostly cartoonish drawings) of a “parallel universe” where the roles of humans and animals are switched.

The authors measured and compared the self-reported levels of speciesist attitudes and behavioral intentions in individuals who watched the video compilation against a group that was not exposed to the intervention (the control). They also compared behavioral responses between the groups by assessing whether participants were willing to sign an animal rights petition. Two separate studies were conducted, the second being a replication of the first study with a larger and more diverse sample size and with improvements to the methodology. The second study also corrected for the possibility of social desirability bias among participants (where responses may be biased by what participants think the researcher expects).

In the first study, 231 students between the ages of 17 and 31 participated for course credit. Most (76%) were females. The second study included 399 participants ranging in age from 18 to 70, recruited via the Prolific platform. Just over half (54%) were males.

The Video’s Impact On Attitudes

A pre-existing, validated tool known as the Speciesism Scale was used to measure speciesist attitudes. Participants rated their level of agreement with six statements (e.g., “Morally, animals always count for less than humans”) on a seven-point scale ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.”

In both studies, the authors found there was no statistical difference between the intervention and control conditions, indicating that watching the video didn’t lead to reduced speciesist attitudes.

The Video’s Impact On Behavioral Intentions

To analyze behavioral intentions, a four-point scale was used to measure the extent to which participants intended to change behaviors that directly or indirectly harm animals across seven areas of animal use (e.g., eating meat, wearing fur). Participants also rated how attentively they watched the video and provided details of their current diet type.

Across both studies, the authors found participants in the intervention group more strongly intended to reduce their harmful behaviors toward animals than those in the control group, suggesting that the video had an impact. Interestingly, though, most participants already intended to change their behavior regardless of which group they were in.

The second study also investigated whether shifts in behavioral intention as a result of watching the video were mediated by other factors, including whether participants were:

• Aware of how animals are commonly treated in various industries;
• Able to take the perspective of an animal; and
• Experiencing feelings of injustice while taking part in the study.

From their analysis, the authors concluded the intervention sparked feelings of injustice, which led to the reduction in speciesist intentions.

The Video’s Impact On Actual Behaviors

Behavioral response was measured through participants’ willingness to sign a petition. In the second study, the researchers increased the amount of effort required by asking participants if they would sign the petition and answer additional questions, just in case agreeing to sign was too easy of a behavior. The authors found there was no significant difference between the intervention and control groups across both studies.

So Was The Video Effective At Reducing Speciesism?

The two studies show the video intervention changed behavioral intentions but not attitudes or actual behaviors. The authors argue that eliciting feelings associated with injustice was most effective in changing intentions; on its own, increased awareness might not be sufficient to change behavior. They suggest that multiple interventions over a longer period of time are likely needed to change speciesist attitudes.

The authors acknowledge there may have been a dampened effect due to a distress warning before the study, which may have filtered out strongly affected individuals. Exposing participants to real or realistic images rather than cartoons of animal exploitation may have yielded different responses and could be an important approach to explore.

Ultimately, it’s unclear how these results could be applied to practical advocacy contexts. Social dynamics are complex, so the causes of changes in attitudes and behaviors are not easily disaggregated.

It’s also unclear how the authors reduced potential mediating factors to just a small set (awareness, perspective-taking, and injustice). While they don’t discuss other possible mediators, it seems plausible that factors like cultural background and political affiliation could play a role. The study took place online, which means that other interpersonal factors relevant for on-the-ground activists (e.g., tone, body language, location) weren’t explored.

Furthermore, the behavioral response check gave limited insight into whether participants behaved differently in their daily life as a result of the intervention. Agreeing to sign a petition may not be the most effective way to measure a behavior change towards reducing harm to animals.

The experimental design therefore doesn’t lead to generalizable conclusions, but the study contributes to a growing field exploring effective action to reduce speciesism.