Wuensch-Poteat - Evaluating the Morality of Animal Research Effects of Ethical Ideology Gender and...

7/28/2019 Wuensch-Poteat - Evaluating the Morality of Animal Research Effects of Ethical Ideology Gender and Purpose

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Evaluating the Morality of Animal Research:Effects of Ethical Ideology, Gender, and Purpose

Karl L. WuenschG. Michael PoteatEast C arolina University

College students (N = 315) were asked to pretend that they w ere servingon a university research committee hearing a complaint against animalresearch being conducted by a member of the university faculty. Fivedifferent research scenarios were used; Testing cosm etics, basic theorytesting, agricultural (meat production) research, veterinary research, andmedical research. Participants were asked to rate how justified theythought the research was and to decide whether or not the researchshould be halted. An ethical inventory was used to measure p articipa nts'idealism and relativism. Idealism was negatively associated and relativ-ism positively associated w ith support for animal research. W omen weremuch less accepting of animal research than were men. Support for thecosmetic, theoretical, and agricultural research projects was signifi-cantly less than that for the medical research.

Du r ing the pas t few years , psyc holog is t s hav e frequent ly add resse dthe moral i ty of conduct ing research on nonhuman animals (Baldwin ,1 9 9 3 ; B ow d & Shap i ro , 19 93; Ulr ich , 199 1) . A few peo ple may arguethat such research is never moral ly acceptable, others may argue that i t isa lways acceptable , and most people are of the opin ion that an imalresearch i s acceptable in some ci rcumstances but not in o thers . Forexample , t h ree four ths o f P ious ' (1996a ,b ) r esponden t s (psycho log i s t sand psychology majors) suppor ted the use of animals in psychologicalresearch , but a major i ty opposed research which caused pain or resul tedin the dea th of the an im al . Th e oppos i t ion to painful or term inal resea rchwa s most prono unc ed when the subject was a pr im ate or a dog rather thana pigeon or a rat .


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140 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL BEHAVIOR AND PERSONALITY

What are the factors which would allow one to predict whether ornot a particular person is likely to approve of a particular animal researchproject? Certainly characteristics of the research project are important.Driscoll (1992) found that the type of animal used was an importantfactor, but that whether the animal was killed or not was not important.Nallan and Moore (1992) also found that type of animal was importantand that providing a medical rationale (with potential benefits to humanhealth) resulted in greater support of invasive animal research. Whenasked what factors were important when making judgments about theacceptability of proposed research projects, students in psychologymentioned the benefits and costs ofthe research, the type of animal beingstudied (hum an-like or not, pet or pest, sentient or not, etc.) , the va lidityofthe proposed research, and the availability of alternative procedures toanswer the same research question (Galvin & Herzog, 1992b).

Characteristics of the person judging the research are also doubt-lessly important. Several researchers have reported that women are morelikely than men to advocate animal rights and oppose animal research(Broida, Tingley, Kimball, & Miele, 1993; Driscoll, 1992; Gallup &Beckstead, 1988; Galvin & H erzog, 1992a, 1992b; Herzog , Betchart, &Pittman, 1991; Pious, 1991, 1996a, 1996b). Attitudes about animals andanimal research have been reported to be associated with age, petownership, religious affiliation, major in school, sex role orientation,political conservatism, vegetarianism, empathy towards animals, andattitudes about the environment, the military, and science (Broida et al.,1993; Driscoll, 1992; Gallup & Beckstead, 1988).Using For syth 's (1980) Ethics Position Q uestionnaire (EPQ ), Galvinand Herzog (1992a) demonstrated a relationship between individuals'ethical ideology and their attitudes towards animals. The EPQ mea surestwo ethical dimen sions, idealism and relativism. People who score highon the idealism dimension believe that ethical behavior will always leadonly to good consequences, never to bad consequences, and never to amixture of good and bad consequences. People who score high on therelativism dimension reject the notion of universal moral principles,preferring personal and situational analysis of behavior.


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Wuensch & Poteat MO RALITY OF ANIM AL RESEARC H 141

(1992a) compared animal rights activists with college students in intro-ductory psychology. Absolutism (high idealism, low relativism) wasmore frequent and subjectivism (low idealism, high relativism) lessfrequent in the activists than in the students. An animal attitude scale w asalso administered to the students. Concern for the welfare of anim als w assignificantly correlated with idealism, but the relationship betweenrelativism and attitude toward animals fell short of statistical signifi-cance.

In a related research project (Galvin & Herzog, 1992b), studentswere asked to pretend that they were serving on an institutional animalcare and use committee, charged with evaluating five animal reseatchproposals. The proposals differed in terms of the species studied (mice.rats, monkeys, dogs, or bears), the procedures involved (amputation,food deprivation, brain surgery, veterinary surgical practice, or fieldobservation), and the stated purpose of the research (theoretical, class-room demonstration, medical research, veterinary training, social/etho-logical research). The proposals involving the rats and bears wereevaluated more favorably than those involving the mice and monkeys,probably because the mouse and monkey research was mote invasive(amputation or brain surgery). Idealism but not relativism was signifi-cantly associated with evaluation of the proposals, with higher scores onthe idealism dimension being associated with disapproval of the propos-als. Students' evaluations of the effectiveness of anti-animal researchliterature has also been found to be significantly affected by their genderand idealism but not relativism (Nickell & Herzog, 1996).

The purpose of the present study was similar to that of Galvin andHerzog (1992b). We wished to determine how the moral evaluation of ahypo thetical animal research project is affected by the stated purpose ofthe research and the evaluator's ethical ideology and gender. Given theresults of Galvin and Herzog's (1992b) research and that of others citedabove, we expected to find that: (a) support for the research would benegatively associated with idealism. Idealists are inclined to consider anaction ethically wrong if it involves any bad consequences, and hann toanimal research subjects is reasonably considered a bad consequence:


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Galvin and Herzog's (1992b) scenarios confounded the stated pur-pose ofthe research with type of animals being tested and the proceduresinvolved. For example, one of their scenarios involved newborn micehaving their forelimbs amputated to study the relative importance ofheredity and experience on development of motor patterns. Anotherinvolved operant training of food deprived rats for a classroom learningexperiment. The rat research received much more support than themouse research. Was the rat research less troublesome because rats arenot as nice as newborn mice, because classroom learning is moreimportant than answering a nature/nurture question, or because operanttraining is less offensive than amputation? Galvin and Herzog addressedsuch questions by asking their participants several questions, includingquestions about the potential benefits ofthe research and how upsettingthe procedures were. We chose to avoid such confounding by using asimpler design: We varied only the stated purpose of the research,holding constant across projects as to the type of animal tested and theprocedures involved.

METHODParticipantsParticipants were 315 college students (200 women and 115 men)who were enrolled in undergraduate psychology classes at a southern,public un iversity. Their participation w as voluntary, and they did receiveadditional course credit for participating. Their ages ranged from 17years to 38 years w ith a mean of 19 years. The majority (88%) identifiedtheir race as white.ProcedureParticipants were assembled outside of their regular class meetingtimes. They were asked to pretend that they were serving on a universitycommittee that was charged with investigating complaints against ani-mal research at the university. They were presented with a complaintabout some ongoing research being conducted by a "Dr. Wissen." Thecomplaint, which was said to have been filed by "members of the localStudents Concerned About Treatment Of Subjects," included a descrip-


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Wuensch & Poteat MO RALITY OF ANIM AL RESEARC H 143

meat.") made it clear that the cats were killed. The complaint asked that"Dr. Wissen's" authorization to conduct this research be withdrawn andthe cats turned over to the animal rights group that was tiling thecomplaint. It was suggested that the research done by "Dr. Wissen"could just as well be done with computer simulations.

"Dr. Wissen's" defense included an explanation of how steps hadbeen taken to assure that no animal felt much pain at any time, anexplanation that computer simulation was not an adequate substitute foranimal research, and an explanation of what the benefits of the researchwere. Each participant read one of five different scenarios which de-scribed the goals and benefits ofthe research. They were:

Co sm etic: Testing the toxicity of chem icals to be used in newlines of hair care products.

Theory: Eva luating two com peting theories about the functionof a particular nucleus in the brain.

M eat: Testing a synthetic growth horm one said to have thepotential of increasing meat production.Veterinary : Attem pting to find a cure for a brain disease that is

killing both domestic cats and endangered species ofwild cats.

M edical: Evaluating a potential cure for a debilitating diseasethat afflicts many young adult humans.

After reading the case materials, each participant was asked todecide whether or not to withdraw "Dr. Wissen's" authorization toconduct the research, to rate on a 9-point scale how justified the researchis, from "not at all" to "completely," to com plete Fo rsyth 's (1980) E thicsPosition Q uestionnaire (EP Q), and to provide some dem ographic infor-mation, including gender.The Ethics Position Questionnaire

The EPQ consists of 20 Likert-type items, each with a 9-pointresponse scale from completely disagree to completely agree. Responsesto the first ten items are averaged to produce an idealism score, and


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TA BL E 1 Effect of Scenario on Percentage of Participants Votingto Allow the Research to Continue and Participants'Mean Justification Score

ScenarioTheoryMeatCosmeticVeterinaryMedical

Percentage Support3137404154

JustificationM

4.254.794.024.985.21

SD(2.14)(2.16)(2.32)(2.11)(2.49)

Item 7 reads "decid ing whether or not to perform an act by balancing thepositive consequences of the act against the negative consequences ofthe act is immoral." The items on the relativism scale ask whetber or notthere are universal moral rules (the relativist believes that tbere are not).Item 12, for exam ple, reads "what is ethical varies from one situation andsociety to anotbe r," and Item 16 reads "m oral standards are simplypersona l rules wbich indicate how a person should behave, and ate not tobe applied in making judgments of others." Forsyth (1980) reportedCronbach's alpha of .80 for the idealism scale and .73 for the relativistnscale. Test-retest reliabilities were .67 for the idealism scale and .66 f6rtbe relativism scale. The EPQ scales' validity was supported by theobservation of tbe expected pattern of correlations witb otber measutesof ethical perspectives and witb participants' attitudes on con tempo tarymoral issues (Forsytb, 1980).

RESULTSThe EPQ


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Wuensch & Poteat MORA LITY OF ANIMAL RESEARCH

TABLE 2

PredictorGenderIdealismRelativismScenario

CosmeticTheoryMeatVeterinary

Logistic Regression PredictingIdeology, and ScenarioB

1.25-.70.33

-.71-1.16-.87

-.54

Wald X '20.5937.89

6.632.857.354.161.75

Decision From

P


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point increase on the 9-point idealism scale being associated with theodds of approving the research increasing by a multiplicative factor of1.39. The scenario variable was dummy coded using the medical sce-nario (which we anticipated would be the group which was most sup-ported) as the reference group. Only the theory and the meat scenarioswere approved significantly less than the medical scenario. The negativeB coefficients and odds ratios less than one for each of the scenariodummy variables simply reflects the fact that support for continuation ofthe research was greater with the medical scenario (the reference group)than with any of the other scenarios. Inverted odds ratios for thesedummy variables indicate that the odds of approval for the medicalscenario w ere 2.38 times higher than for the meat scenario and 3.22 tim eshigher than for the theory scenario.

Univariate descriptive statistics showed that men were more likelyto approve the research (59%) than were women (30%). Those whoapproved the research were less idealistic (M = 5.87, SD = 1.23) thanthose who didn't (M = 6.92, SD - 1.22). Those who approved theresearch were more relativistic (M = 6.26, SD = 0.99) than those whodidn' t (M=: 5.91, S D = 1.19).Justification ScoresAn analysis of covariance was used to predict participan ts' justifica-tion scores from their idealism, relativism, gender, and scenario. Therewere no significant interactions between predictors, but each predictorhad a significant main effect. Idealism was negatively associated withjustification , |3 = -0 .32, r = -0.36 , F( 1, 303) = 40.93, p < .001, relativismwas positively associated with justification, (3 = .20, r = .22, F( 1, 303) =15.39, p < .001, mean justification was higher for men (M = 5.30. SD -2.25) than for wom en (M = 4.28, SD = 2.21),F( 1,303)= 13.24, p < .001 ,and scena rio had a significant om nibus effect (see the means in Table I).F(4, 303) = 3.61, p = .007. Using the medical scenario as the referencegroup, the cosmetic and the theory scenarios were found to be signifi-cantly less justified.Predictive Value of Individual Items from the Idealism Scale


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W uensch & Poteat MORA LITY OF ANIMA L RESEARCH 147

predicting justification score; and only Item 3 and Item 7 for predictingdecision.

DISCUSSIONThere are several reasons not to be surprised that so many partici-pants voted to stop the ongoing research: (a) The research being evalu-ated was invasive (brain surgery) and led to the death of the animal, (b)the species being studied was one commonly kept as a pet, and (c) thecase was presented as a complaint filed by students concerned about the

treatment of research animals. We acknowledge that these factors likelycontributed to the high percentage voting to stop the research (59 % ). Wehad hoped for about a 50/50 split, which would make it easier to detectthe effects of our predictor variables. When Galvin and He rzog' s (1992b)participants evaluated a proposal for brain surgery research to be done onmonkeys, the percentage who voted to deny permission to start theresearch (58%) was nearly identical to the percentage of our participantswho voted to stop ongoing brain surgery research on cats.

As we anticipated, our medical scenario, which suggested healthbenefits for college-aged humans, was the most acceptable research, theonly one which enjoyed majority (54%) support. It should be noted,however, that nearly half (46%) of our participants voted to stop theresearch even with this medical scenario. We had expected that thecosmetic research would be the most frequently stopped, so we weresurprised that it fared as well as it did. Perhaps many of our participantsconsidered cosmetic research important because they are consumers ofcosmetics and concerned about the safety of those products. We werealso surprised at how poorly received the theoretical research was.Apparently the teachers in our department have not convinced ourstudents that testing psychological theory is of very great importance.

The largest effects obtained in our research were those of gender andidealism. Comparing the Wald y} statistics with one another or theanalysis of covariance F statistics with one another m akes it clear that theeffects of scenario and relativism, although significant, are small incomparison to the effects of idealism and gender. As noted earlier,


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148 JOURN AL OF SOCIAL BEHAV IOR AND PERSONALITY

the ethic of caring (Forsyth, Nye, & Kelley, 1988). Might our observedgender difference in evaluation of animal research be due to idealism andcaring mediating the effect of gender? Although there was a small butsignificant association between gender and idealism among our partici-pants (with the women being more idealistic, r = .13), idealism was nolan important variable intervening between gender and evaluation of iheresearch. For both the logistic regression and the analysis of covariance:the effects we reported for each predictor were unique effects, that is, theeffect of the pred ictor above and beyond that due to its overlap with otherpredictors in the model.

Previous investigations ofthe relationship between ethical ideologyand attitudes towards animals (Galvin & Herzog, 1992a), the evaluationof animal research proposals (Galvin & Herzog, 1992b), and the evalu-ation of anti-animal research propaganda (Nickell & Herzog, 1996) haveyielded significant effects of idealism but not of relativism. Our resultsindicate significant effects of botb idealism and relativism, witb supportfor animal research being negatively associated witb idealism and posi-tively associated witb relativism. It should be noted that although statis-tically significant, the effect of relativism was much smaller in magni-tude than that of idealism.

The stepwise regression analysis revealed that Items 3 and 7 of theidealism scale were the best predictors of particip ants ' dec isions. Bolh ofthese items refer to cost-benefit analysis. Perhaps tbe association be-tween idealism and nonacceptance of animal research is mostly due tothe idealist's reluctance to engage in ethical cost-benefit analysis. Ourparticipants did read the researcher's explanation of the benefits of theanimal research, but for the idealist the existence of any costs (harm tothe animals) renders the research immoral, regardless of the benefits tobe derived from the research. Supporters of animal research frequentlystress the benefits (especially benefits to human health) of such research(M iller, 1985; National A cademy of Sciences, 1991). It would seemunlikely that such arguments would persuade an idealist. On the otherhand, most of Galvin and Herzog's (1992b) participants did use cost-benefit analysis, so we should expect both supporters and opponents of


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i n v o l v e d in r e s e a r c h s t u d y i n g t h e i n f l u e n c e o f a n t h r o p o c e n t r i s m ( C h a n -d l e r & D r e g e r , 1 9 9 3 ; D r e g e r & C h a n d l e r , 1 9 9 3 ) a n d m i s a n t h r o p y u p o na t t i t u d e s a b o u t a n i m a l s a n d a n i m a l r e s e a r c b .

REFERENCESBaldwin. E. (1993). The case for animal research in psychology. Journal of

Social Issues. 49(1) . 1 2 1 - 1 3 1 .Bowd, A. D.. & Shapiro. K. J. (1993). The case against laboratory animiilresearch in psychology. Journal of Soc ial I s sues . 49 (1 ) . 133-142.Broida, J., Tingley, L.. K imbail. R.. & M iele. J. (1993). Personality differencesbetween pro- and anti-vivisectionists. S ocie ty atid Animals. I . 129-144.Chandler. E. W.. & Dreger. R. M. (1993). A nthropocentrism: Construct validityand me asurem e nt. Journal of S ocial Be havior at id Persottali ty. 8. 169-188.Drege r. R. M.. & Ch andler. E. W. (1993). Confirtnation of the construct validityand factor structure of the measure of anthropocentrism. Journal of SocialBehavior and Personality. 8. 189-202.Driscoll. J. W. (1992). Attitudes toward animal use. Atithrozoos. 5. 32-39.Forsyth. D . R. (1980). A taxonomy of ethical ideo logies. Jouttial of Personalityand Sociat P.'sychology. 39, 175-184.Forsyth. D. R.. Nye. J. L.. & Kelley. K. (1988 ). Idealism, rela tivism, and the ethicof caring. Jouttial of Psychology. 122, 243-248.Forsyth. D. R.. & Pope, W. R. (1984). Ethical ideology and judgm ents of socialpsychological research: Multidimensional analysis. Journal of Personalityand Social Psychology. 46. 1365-1375.Ga llup, G. G., Jr.. & Beckstead, J. W. (198 8). Attitudes toward animal research.American Psychologis t . 43 . 474-476.Galvin, S. L.. & Herzog. H. A., Jr. (1992a). Ethical ideology, animal rightsactivism, and attitudes toward the treatment of anim als. Ethic s and Behav-ior. 2 . 141-149.

Galvin. S. L. & Herzog. H. A.. Jr. (1992b). The ethical judgment of animalresearch. Ethic s at id Behavior. 2. 263-286.Gilligan. C. (1982). In a differe t i t voice . Cambridge. MA: Harvard UniversityPress.Herzog, H. A.. Jr.. Betchart. N. S.. & Pittman. R. B. (1991). Gender, se.x roleorientation, and attitudes toward animals. Anthtozoos. 4. 184-191.Miller. N. E. (1985). The value of behavioral research on animals. Americat iPsychologist . 40, 423-440.Nallan. G. B.. & Moore, D. S. (1992. March). E.xpe ritnenial inve s tigation ofs ttide nt attitudes re gatding animal tights. Paper presented at the tncetiny olthe Southeastern Psychological Association, Knoxville. TN.


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Pious, S. (199 6b). Attitudes toward the use of animals in psycho logical researchand education: Results from a national survey of psychology majors.Psychological Science, 7, 352-358.Ulrich, R. E. (1991). Animal rights, animal wrongs and the question of balance.Psychological Science, 2, 197-201.


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