A cross-cultural examination of individual differences in human attitudes about animals

Abstract

In this study we examined variation in three human attitudes towards animals—speciesism, belief in sentience, and rationalizing animal consumption—across Eastern and Western cultures and demographic characteristics within cultures, and whether individual predictors vary as a function of culture. Analyses were based on 20,996 participants from 23 countries. We examined mean-level differences and associations with inter-individual differences in multi-group confirmatory factor analysis models across both countries and Eastern/Western groups. Participants from Western countries reported much lower speciesism and somewhat higher beliefs in animals’ capacity to experience emotions, but cultural differences in rationalizing animal consumption were small and less culturally systematic. In both culture groups, being female and more left-leaning was associated with lower speciesism and acceptance of animal consumption. Whereas stronger beliefs in animal sentience were associated with lower speciesism in Western but not Eastern countries, they also co-occurred with stronger justifications for land and sea animal consumption in both culture groups—suggesting that the more one believes that animals are sentient, the more cognitive effort is required to consume them. This study provides new insights into how cultural factors affect and interplay with individual factors regarding attitudes toward animals.