Fitzpatrick Richard, Romanò Nicola, Menzies John
School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3FD, UK.
Centre for Discovery Brain Sciences, Edinburgh Medical School: Biomedical Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9XD, UK.
Animals (Basel). 2023 Nov 20;13(22):3584. doi: 10.3390/ani13223584.
Taking a compassionate approach to the non-human animals used in biomedical research is in line with emerging ideas around a "culture of care". It is important to expose biomedical sciences students to the concept of a culture of care at an early stage and give them opportunities to explore related practices and ideas. However, there is no simple tool to explore biomedical sciences students' attitudes towards laboratory animals. Accordingly, there is little understanding of students' feelings towards these animals, or a means of quantifying potential changes to these feelings. We developed a 12-item questionnaire designed to explore compassion (the Laboratory Animal Compassion Scale; LACS) and used it with UK-based and China-based samples of undergraduate biomedical sciences students. In the same samples, we also explored a harm-benefit analysis task and students' beliefs regarding some mental characteristics of laboratory animals, then drew correlations with the quantitative measure of compassion. Compassion levels were stable across years of study and were not related to students' level of experience of working with laboratory animals. We observed a higher level of compassion in females versus males overall, and a higher level overall in the UK-based versus China-based sample. In a task pitting animal suffering against human wellbeing, students' compassion levels correlated negatively with their acceptance of animal suffering. Compassion levels correlated positively with a belief in animals being conscious and possessing emotions. These data are in line with studies that show compassion is gender- and nationality/culture-dependent, and points to links between compassion, beliefs, and choices.
对生物医学研究中使用的非人类动物采取富有同情心的方法，符合围绕“关爱文化”的新观念。在早期阶段就让生物医学专业的学生接触关爱文化的概念，并给他们机会探索相关实践和理念，这很重要。然而，没有简单的工具来探究生物医学专业学生对实验动物的态度。因此，对于学生对这些动物的感受了解甚少，也没有办法量化这些感受可能发生的变化。我们开发了一份包含12个条目的问卷，旨在探究同情心（实验动物同情量表；LACS），并将其用于英国和中国的本科生物医学专业学生样本。在相同的样本中，我们还探究了一项利弊分析任务以及学生对实验动物某些心理特征的看法，然后将其与同情心的量化指标进行关联分析。同情心水平在多年的学习过程中保持稳定，且与学生在实验动物操作方面的经验水平无关。总体而言，我们观察到女性的同情心水平高于男性，并且英国样本的同情心水平总体高于中国样本。在一项将动物痛苦与人类福祉对立起来的任务中，学生的同情心水平与他们对动物痛苦的接受程度呈负相关。同情心水平与认为动物有意识和有情感的信念呈正相关。这些数据与表明同情心因性别和国籍/文化而异的研究结果一致，并指出了同情心、信念和选择之间的联系。
