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Animals as Philosophical and Ethical Subjects
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Mathews, Steve and Harold A. Herzog, Jr. 1997. Personality and Attitudes toward the Treatment of Animals. Society & Animals 5(2): 169-175. Hypothesis : Attitude toward the treatment of animals is a function of personality. Independent variable/operational definition : Personality, defined by The Sixteen Personality Factor (16PF) Questionnaire Form C (measuring warmth, intelligence, emotional stability, dominance, impulsivity, conformity, boldness, sensitivity, suspicious(ness), imaginative(ness), shrewdness, insecurity, radicalism, self-sufficiency, self-discipline, and tension). Dependent variable/operational definition : Attitudes toward the treatment of animals were determined through the use of the Animal Attitude Scale (which is influenced by “gender and sex-role orientation, empathy, personal moral philosophy, and beliefs about the capacity of animals to experience mental states”, p. 171). Findings : Analysis of this data revealed that, in general, there was no statistically significant relationship between personality and attitudes toward animals. However, two individual factors – sensitivity and imaginative - were found to have a significant relationship with attitude and females were observed as having significantly higher scores than males on the Animal Attitude Scale. Gender was found to account for about 19.5% of the variance in the AAS scores, while sensitivity explained about 4%. The authors then go on to compare their results to the results from a study done by Broida, Tigley, Kimball, and Miele (1993), in which the MBTI, rather than the 16PF, was used to determine personality. The studies are described as similar in that “the description of traits associated with attitudes towards animals are similar” (p. 173). The authors conclude, based on their data, that personality is not very useful as an indicator of “non-animal activist” attitudes toward non-human animals. The authors indicate that more studies need to be done, including studies on the relationship between personality and attitudes toward the treatment of animals in animal rights activists . Sample/population sampled : The 16PF, the Animal Attitude Scale, and a demographic questionnaire were administered to 99 undergraduate psychology students at Western Carolina University (47 male, 52 female).
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