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Animals as Philosophical and Ethical Subjects


Animals as Reflexive Thinkers


Domestication and Predation


Animals as Entertainment and Spectacle

Animals as Companions


Animals as Symbols


Animals in Science, Education and Therapy


Animals in History


Animals as Food


Animals in Literature and Ecocriticism


Animals in Feminism and Ecofeminism


Animals in Religion, Myth, and Folktales


Conservation and Animal/Human Conflict


Miscellaneous

Contact
LKalof@msu.edu

Linda Kalof,
Seven Bryant,
Amy Fitzgerald
Department of Sociology, Michigan State University,
East Lansing, MI 48824

 

Schulz, Wolfgang. 1987. Attitudes toward wildlife in West Germany. In Daniel J. Decker and Gary R. Goff (Eds.), Valuing wildlife: Economic and Social Perspectives (pp. 352-354). Boulder, CO: Westview.

Schulz translated Kellert's 1980 questionnaire, adapted it to German conditions, and got 1484 responses from students at adult colleges from every part of West Germany. Using Kellert's typology, the German sample produced this hierarchy of attitudes: moralistic (“primary concern for the right and wrong treatment of animals”), humanistic (“strong affection for individual animals”), naturalistic (“affection for the whole nature”), ecologistic (“primary concern for the environment as a system”), negativistic, scientistic, utilitarian, and dominionistic. Thus emotional attitudes top the list and materialistic ones fall at the bottom. Mean attitude scores varied by demographic group, activity group, and level of knowledge. Level of knowledge about animals best explained attitude variation. Respondents with high knowledge scored high on moralistic, naturalistic, ecologistic, and scientific scales. People with little knowledge about animals scored high on humanistic, negativistic, and utilitarian scales. This may be because people who focus on individual animals (the humanistic score) miss seeing the value of nature and the environment as a whole, which is more complex. Respondents with medium amounts of knowledge scored highest on dominionistic attitudes.

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