School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom.
Department of Education and Sociology, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2020 Jan 21;15(1):e0227948. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0227948. eCollection 2020.
Globally, many millions of animals are used by humans every year and much of this usage causes public concern. A new scale, devised to measure attitudes to animal use in relation to the purpose of use and species, the Animal Purpose Questionnaire (APQ), was completed by in total 483 participants, 415 British nationals and 68 participants from 39 other countries. The APQ was presented in two survey formats, alongside an established Animal Attitudes Scale (AAS). In both surveys, participants also provided demographic details to provide a context to their attitudes to animals. As might be expected, and consistent with the validity of the new scale, overall scores on the AAS and APQ were highly correlated. However, the APQ provided a more differentiated measure of attitudes to animal use across a variety of settings. The results showed that there was overall higher levels of agreement with the use of animals in medical research and basic science, less endorsement for food production and pest control, and the use of animals for other cultural practices was generally disapproved of, irrespective of species. Participants overall disagreed with the use of rabbits, monkeys, badgers, tree shrews (survey 1), chimpanzees, dogs, dolphins and parrots (survey 2), but were neutral about the use of rats, mice, pigs, octopus, chickens, zebrafish (survey 1), carp, chickens, pigs, pigeons, rabbits and rats (survey 2). Interactions between species and purpose were largely driven by the consideration of using diverse species for food production. In general, females and vegetarians expressed less agreement with the use of animals with some differences by purpose of use. Pet keeping consistently predicted reduced willingness to use animals for basic science (only). The APQ provides a new tool to unpack how public attitudes depend on the intersectionality of demographics, species and purpose of use.
全球每年有数以百万计的动物被人类使用，其中许多行为引起了公众的关注。为了衡量人们对动物使用的态度与使用目的和物种之间的关系，设计了一种新的量表，即动物用途问卷（APQ）。共有 483 名参与者完成了该问卷，其中 415 名是英国国民，68 名来自 39 个其他国家的参与者。APQ 以两种调查形式呈现，同时还有一种已建立的动物态度量表（AAS）。在这两种调查中，参与者还提供了人口统计学细节，以提供他们对动物态度的背景。不出所料，与新量表的有效性一致，AAS 和 APQ 的总体得分高度相关。然而，APQ 提供了一种更具差异化的方法来衡量各种环境下对动物使用的态度。结果表明，人们总体上更同意在医学研究和基础科学中使用动物，对食品生产和害虫控制的支持较少，而对其他文化实践中使用动物则普遍不赞成，无论物种如何。参与者普遍不同意使用兔子、猴子、獾、树鼩（调查 1）、黑猩猩、狗、海豚和鹦鹉（调查 2），但对使用老鼠、老鼠、猪、章鱼、鸡、斑马鱼（调查 1）、鲤鱼、鸡、猪、鸽子、兔子和老鼠（调查 2）持中立态度。物种和目的之间的相互作用主要是由考虑使用多种物种进行食品生产驱动的。一般来说，女性和素食者对使用动物的态度不太一致，在使用目的上也存在一些差异。养宠物的人一直表示不愿意将动物用于基础科学（仅）。APQ 提供了一种新工具，可以剖析公众态度如何取决于人口统计学、物种和使用目的的交叉性。
