Animal Welfare Attitudes: Effects of Gender and Diet in University Samples from 22 Countries.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Randler C
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8300362 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Literary fiction has been credited with considerable power to improve attitudes toward outgroups. It was even argued that it has been an important factor behind the global decline of violence against various minorities in the last centuries. Could it also help to reduce the human-inflicted suffering of animals? To test this, we studied the attitude toward animal welfare of n = 921 (experimental group) people of both sexes who read a short fragment of an unpublished novel with a motif of the physical abuse of an animal. The control group (n = 912) read a fragment of a similar length but not related to animals. After reading the text all subjects filled out an on-line questionnaire with seven items (camouflaged among many others items) measuring attitudes toward animal welfare. The questionnaire included also demographical questions, such as whether the subject keeps pets. We found that in comparison with the control group, the experimental group was significantly more concerned about animal welfare. This result indicates that literary fiction can influence attitudes toward other species. It is also worth noting that our study is characterized by a high level of ecological validity, i.e. a relatively high extent to which its results can be generalized (or extended) to real-world settings. Due to its specific design, which involved the cooperation of a bestselling author and his publisher, the study approximated the typical conditions in which people read fiction in a remarkably accurate way. Finally, our research has potential practical implications for promoting animal welfare.
| S-EPMC5179074 | biostudies-literature
Project description:[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0168695.].
| S-EPMC5302374 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The aim of this exploratory work, because of the existing bias on the size of the sample and some of the sociodemographic characteristics of the participants, was to investigate the Eastern European consumers' beliefs and attitudes toward animal welfare, to perform a cross-country segmentation analysis and to observe possible differences with their Western European counterparts. For this purpose, a survey was conducted with 5508 consumers from 13 Eastern European countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, North Macedonia, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Ukraine) using a questionnaire with nine statements about consumers beliefs regarding animal welfare (aspects of management, ethical issues about animals, and consequences of animal welfare on meat quality and price), one statement about the willingness to pay more for meat produced under better welfare conditions, and four statements regarding attitudes toward animal welfare. Differences between countries were detected for all the statements. Moreover, three clusters of consumers were identified: one with consumers indifferent towards animal welfare; one with consumers concerned about animal welfare, but they believe it is difficult to achieve; and one with consumers concerned about animal welfare, and they believe it is possible to achieve it.
| S-EPMC7401545 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Halal food is that which is permissible or lawful for Muslims to consume. Meat products must abide by a number of requirements in relation to their preparation, condition and content to be considered halal. We conducted a survey in order to assess the knowledge of, and attitudes towards, halal meat products in two contrasting countries, one with a majority non-Muslim population (Australia, respondent n = 565), where the most commonly followed religion is Christianity, and one with a majority Muslim population (Malaysia, n = 740). The most common reasons for avoiding halal food were animal welfare, religion and meat quality. Malaysians generally believed that halal processes led to improved meat quality, whereas Australians did not. The general consensus was in favour of legally controlling animal welfare during slaughter, supported by both Muslims and Christians. Malaysians were more aware of the main tenets of halal slaughter than Australians. However, some non-compulsory, incorrect practices were thought to be required practices by respondents in both countries, but especially in Australia. Muslims were more concerned about humane treatment of animals during halal slaughter. They generally believed that stunning is never allowed and that this view was acceptable, whereas people from other belief systems generally held the view that this was unacceptable. Religion and education were the most common factors associated with attitudes, beliefs and consumer habits concerning halal. Information from this study can help to improve understanding of attitudes to halal and provide insights to policy makers seeking to address animal welfare concerns.
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Project description:BACKGROUND:Male piglets are surgically castrated at a young age primarily to prevent pork meat from being tainted with boar taint, an offensive taste and odor that can be present in uncastrated male pigs. The practice of surgical castration is considered to be both stressful and painful for the piglets, and is therefore under scrutiny due to animal welfare concerns. Rearing of intact males or vaccination against boar taint (immunocastration) are two potential alternatives to surgical castration, but in order to successfully implement either of these alternatives, consumer acceptance of the different methods must be taken into consideration as it will be central for future sales of pork products. A consumer survey mapping Norwegian consumers' attitudes toward piglet castration was conducted to explore whether the consumers' position regarding castration has changed since an almost identical study was completed in 2008. RESULTS:The internet-based survey found that Norwegian consumers are comfortable with the current practice of surgical castration with anesthesia, but also that they are open to the alternative method of vaccination against boar taint. When provided additional information stating that vaccination against boar taint may not be able to reduce boar taint to the levels that castration with anesthesia does, consumer skepticism towards vaccination increased. When evaluating castration methods, animal welfare was the most important influencing factor. Since the original survey from 2008, animal welfare was also the single factor that has increased the most among a set of assessment criteria when purchasing pork products. CONCLUSION:Norwegian consumers regard animal welfare as an important factor both when purchasing pork products and when evaluating different methods of castration, and animal welfare as a factor has increased in importance since the initial survey in 2008. Although the current practice of castration using local anesthesia is still widely accepted among consumers, the acceptance of today's method has declined since the original survey in 2008.
| S-EPMC7249416 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Many authors argue that levels of childlessness and fertility are a function of changing gender relations, but the mechanisms behind this association remain unclear and mainly untested. This study argues that the societal variation in gender role attitudes explains the link: a great variation in attitudes among potential partners leads to uncertainty and conflicts, which depresses people's propensity for parenthood. This idea is tested with multilevel logistic regression models for 6305 individuals in 38 countries on all continents, using ISSP 2012 data. Measures for the average gender role attitude in the society as well as the dispersion in attitudes are regressed on whether individuals have at least one child or are childless. Attitudes are captured using factor analysis and are opinions towards the gendered division of given tasks and privileges, such as childrearing or the uptake of parental leave. The dispersion in attitudes is the standard deviation of the factor variable in the given country. The analysis gives support to the hypothesis: the greater the variation in gender role attitudes, the higher the chance for individuals to remain childless. The association is significant and holds against various robustness checks.
| S-EPMC6261854 | biostudies-other
Project description:In this paper, we describe the results of an online survey consisting of 23 questions created to evaluate the knowledge and interest on animal welfare by students attending 15 different scientific, medical, and biomedical courses at University of Sassari, Italy. The survey collected students' demographic data, level of knowledge both on animal welfare and 3Rs, as well as their opinions on animal experimentation. The majority of the cohort was female and over 24 years of age. About a third of the students responded that their graduate programme included subjects that taught science, ethics, and animal welfare legislation. Just 21.2% of respondents had heard about the concept of 3Rs. About a quarter of the students believed that animal models can be replaced by in vitro and in silico methods while half believed that both are needed. However, 70% of the participants did not know the existence of an Ethics and Animal Welfare Committee. The result showed the importance of an Animal Welfare Course for the professional future of a larger number of students and underlined the key role of veterinary medicine in promoting ethics and animal experimentation.
| S-EPMC10450298 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The search for predictors of intercultural competence (ICC) development is one of the important challenges of modern psychology in connection with globalization in all the spheres of modern life, including university education. The purpose of the present research is to show that the ethno-national attitudes (ENA), which Khukhlaev et al. consider as an individual's predisposition to assess the nationality/ethnicity can determine the severity of ICC features in male and female university students. The sample includes 219 (75% female) first-third year Russian university students. ICC was measured with the author's modification of the intercultural sensitivity scale (ISS) by Khuhlaev and Chibisova. ISS is based on the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity, (DMIS) by Bennett and includes 4 subscales: Minimization, Absolutization, Ambivalence, Acceptance. ENA (Nationalistic, Patriotic, Neutral, Negativistic) were determined with the "Scale of ethno-national attitudes" by Khukhlaev, Kuznetsov, and Tkachenko. Descriptive statistics methods, Wilcoxon W-test, and multiple regression analysis were used for statistical analysis in the R software environment, version 3.5.2. The findings of our research showed that Nationalistic and Patriotic ENA are the strongest predictors of studied ICC scales and have an opposite negative impact on Acceptance and Absolutization in both male and female students. This fact should be taken into account in the context of ICC developments.
| S-EPMC7071438 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Opinions increasingly influence legislative processes. The case of animal welfare (AW) standards is a clear example of the role played by opinions in political decisions. The issue, to which European citizens have historically been sensitive, has been the subject of numerous consultations and investigations, aimed at considering citizens' opinions regarding breeding conditions. However, these tools and in particular standard surveys, suffer from response biases such as the prejudices involved in the design of questions and the interpretation of the results. To mitigate these problems, we used the Q-methodology, which is an inductive but systematic methodology focused on patterns that explain the ideas of individuals. The purposive sample consisted of 36 veterinary students who were acquiring scientific knowledge about AW. The results, in addition to providing policymakers with food for thought for the further development of AW standards, contribute to testing the use of alternative methodologies to collect citizens' views. This mapping of viewpoints helps to build a more effective form of AW policy making.
| S-EPMC7460027 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundGender differences in mortality vary widely between countries and over time, but few studies have examined predictors of these variations, apart from smoking. The aim of this study is to investigate the link between gender policy and the gender gap in cause-specific mortality, adjusted for economic factors and health behaviours.Methods22 OECD countries were followed 1973-2008 and the outcomes were gender gaps in external cause and circulatory disease mortality. A previously found country cluster solution was used, which includes indicators on taxes, parental leave, pensions, social insurances and social services in kind. Male breadwinner countries were made reference group and compared to earner-carer, compensatory breadwinner, and universal citizen countries. Specific policies were also analysed. Mixed effect models were used, where years were the level 1-units, and countries were the level 2-units.ResultsBoth the earner-carer cluster (ns after adjustment for GDP) and policies characteristic of that cluster are associated with smaller gender differences in external causes, particularly due to an association with increased female mortality. Cluster differences in the gender gap in circulatory disease mortality are the result of a larger relative decrease of male mortality in the compensatory breadwinner cluster and the earner-carer cluster. Policies characteristic of those clusters were however generally related to increased mortality.ConclusionResults for external cause mortality are in concordance with the hypothesis that women become more exposed to risks of accident and violence when they are economically more active. For circulatory disease mortality, results differ depending on approach--cluster or indicator. Whether cluster differences not explained by specific policies reflect other welfare policies or unrelated societal trends is an open question. Recommendations for further studies are made.
| S-EPMC3560252 | biostudies-literature