Evaluating the Morality of Animal Research: Effects of Ethical Ideology, Gender, and Purpose

Karl L. Wuensch G. Michael Poteat

East Carolina University
College students (N = 315) were asked to pretend that they were serving on a university research committee hearing a complaint against animal research being conducted by a member of the university faculty. Five different research scenarios were used; Testing cosmetics, basic theory testing, agricultural (meat production) research, veterinary research, and medical research. Participants were asked to rate how justified they thought the research was and to decide whether or not the research should be halted. An ethical inventory was used to measure participants' idealism and relativism. Idealism was negatively associated and relativism positively associated with support for animal research. Women were much less accepting of animal research than were men. Support for the cosmetic, theoretical, and agricultural research projects was significantly less than that for the medical research.

During the past few years, psychologists have frequently addressed the morality of conducting research on nonhuman animals (Baldwin, 1993; Bowd & Shapiro, 1993; Ulrich, 1991). A few people may argue that such research is never morally acceptable, others may argue that it is always acceptable, and most people are of the opinion that animal research is acceptable in some circumstances but not in others. For example, three fourths of Pious' (1996a,b) respondents (psychologists and psychology majors) supported the use of animals in psychological research, but a majority opposed research which caused pain or resulted in the death of the animal. The opposition to painful or terminal research was most pronounced when the subject was a primate or a dog rather than a pigeon or a rat.

Authors' Note: We would like to thank Pamela S. George for her assistance onlhis project. Author info: KARL L. WUENSCH, Department of Pyschology. East Carolina University. Greenville, NC 27858-4353; (252) 328-4102; fax (252) 328-6283, pswuensc@ecuvm. cis.ecu.edu Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 1998, Vol. 13, No. I. 139-150. 1998 Select Press, Corte Madera, CA; 415/435-4461.

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What are the factors which would allow one to predict whether or not a particular person is likely to approve of a particular animal research project? Certainly characteristics of the research project are important. Driscoll (1992) found that the type of animal used was an important factor, but that whether the animal was killed or not was not important. Nallan and Moore (1992) also found that type of animal was important and that providing a medical rationale (with potential benefits to human health) resulted in greater support of invasive animal research. When asked what factors were important when making judgments about the acceptability of proposed research projects, students in psychology mentioned the benefits and costs ofthe research, the type of animal being studied (human-like or not, pet or pest, sentient or not, etc.), the validity ofthe proposed research, and the availability of alternative procedures to answer the same research question (Galvin & Herzog, 1992b). Characteristics of the person judging the research are also doubtlessly important. Several researchers have reported that women are more likely than men to advocate animal rights and oppose animal research (Broida, Tingley, Kimball, & Miele, 1993; Driscoll, 1992; Gallup & Beckstead, 1988; Galvin & Herzog, 1992a, 1992b; Herzog, Betchart, & Pittman, 1991; Pious, 1991, 1996a, 1996b). Attitudes about animals and animal research have been reported to be associated with age, pet ownership, religious affiliation, major in school, sex role orientation, political conservatism, vegetarianism, empathy towards animals, and attitudes about the environment, the military, and science (Broida et al., 1993; Driscoll, 1992; Gallup & Beckstead, 1988). Using Forsyth's (1980) Ethics Position Questionnaire (EPQ), Galvin and Herzog (1992a) demonstrated a relationship between individuals' ethical ideology and their attitudes towards animals. The EPQ measures two ethical dimensions, idealism and relativism. People who score high on the idealism dimension believe that ethical behavior will always lead only to good consequences, never to bad consequences, and never to a mixture of good and bad consequences. People who score high on the relativism dimension reject the notion of universal moral principles, preferring personal and situational analysis of behavior. Forsyth (1980) classified people into four ethical perspectives: Absolutists (high idealism and low relativism), situationists (high idealism and high relativism), exceptionists (low idealism and low relativism), and subjectivists (low idealism and high relativism). He demonstrated that their judgments of the morality of social psychological research were influenced by their ethical perspective, with absolutists consistently rating such experiments as more unethical than did people with other perspectives (Forsyth & Pope, 1984). Galvin and Herzog

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(1992a) compared animal rights activists with college students in introductory psychology. Absolutism (high idealism, low relativism) was more frequent and subjectivism (low idealism, high relativism) less frequent in the activists than in the students. An animal attitude scale was also administered to the students. Concern for the welfare of animals was significantly correlated with idealism, but the relationship between relativism and attitude toward animals fell short of statistical significance. In a related research project (Galvin & Herzog, 1992b), students were asked to pretend that they were serving on an institutional animal care and use committee, charged with evaluating five animal reseatch proposals. The proposals differed in terms of the species studied (mice. rats, monkeys, dogs, or bears), the procedures involved (amputation, food deprivation, brain surgery, veterinary surgical practice, or field observation), and the stated purpose of the research (theoretical, classroom demonstration, medical research, veterinary training, social/ethological research). The proposals involving the rats and bears were evaluated more favorably than those involving the mice and monkeys, probably because the mouse and monkey research was mote invasive (amputation or brain surgery). Idealism but not relativism was significantly associated with evaluation of the proposals, with higher scores on the idealism dimension being associated with disapproval of the proposals. Students' evaluations of the effectiveness of anti-animal research literature has also been found to be significantly affected by their gender and idealism but not relativism (Nickell & Herzog, 1996). The purpose of the present study was similar to that of Galvin and Herzog (1992b). We wished to determine how the moral evaluation of a hypothetical animal research project is affected by the stated purpose of the research and the evaluator's ethical ideology and gender. Given the results of Galvin and Herzog's (1992b) research and that of others cited above, we expected to find that: (a) support for the research would be negatively associated with idealism. Idealists are inclined to consider an action ethically wrong if it involves any bad consequences, and hann to animal research subjects is reasonably considered a bad consequence: (b) women would be less supportive of the research than would be tncn: (c) relativism would be weakly associated with support for animal research, if at all. One might expect relativists, who advocate individualistic and personal analysis of ethical questions, to be less likely to conclude that another person's action is morally incorrect: and (d) support would be greater when the research was directed towards solving problems likely to be considered important to those judging the research.

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Galvin and Herzog's (1992b) scenarios confounded the stated purpose ofthe research with type of animals being tested and the procedures involved. For example, one of their scenarios involved newborn mice having their forelimbs amputated to study the relative importance of heredity and experience on development of motor patterns. Another involved operant training of food deprived rats for a classroom learning experiment. The rat research received much more support than the mouse research. Was the rat research less troublesome because rats are not as nice as newborn mice, because classroom learning is more important than answering a nature/nurture question, or because operant training is less offensive than amputation? Galvin and Herzog addressed such questions by asking their participants several questions, including questions about the potential benefits ofthe research and how upsetting the procedures were. We chose to avoid such confounding by using a simpler design: We varied only the stated purpose of the research, holding constant across projects as to the type of animal tested and the procedures involved. METHOD Participants Participants were 315 college students (200 women and 115 men) who were enrolled in undergraduate psychology classes at a southern, public university. Their participation was voluntary, and they did receive additional course credit for participating. Their ages ranged from 17 years to 38 years with a mean of 19 years. The majority (88%) identified their race as white. Procedure Participants were assembled outside of their regular class meeting times. They were asked to pretend that they were serving on a university committee that was charged with investigating complaints against animal research at the university. They were presented with a complaint about some ongoing research being conducted by a "Dr. Wissen." The complaint, which was said to have been filed by "members of the local Students Concerned About Treatment Of Subjects," included a description of the research in simple but emotional language. Cats were being subjected to stereotaxic surgery in which a cannula was implanted into their brains. Chemicals were then introduced into the cats' brains via the cannula and the cats were given various psychological tests. Following completion of testing, the cats' brains were subjected to histological analysis. The description of the histological procedure ("... her head being chopped off. Her brain is then removed and sliced up like lunch

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meat.") made it clear that the cats were killed. The complaint asked that "Dr. Wissen's" authorization to conduct this research be withdrawn and the cats turned over to the animal rights group that was tiling the complaint. It was suggested that the research done by "Dr. Wissen" could just as well be done with computer simulations. "Dr. Wissen's" defense included an explanation of how steps had been taken to assure that no animal felt much pain at any time, an explanation that computer simulation was not an adequate substitute for animal research, and an explanation of what the benefits of the research were. Each participant read one of five different scenarios which described the goals and benefits ofthe research. They were: Cosmetic: Theory: Meat: Testing the toxicity of chemicals to be used in new lines of hair care products. Evaluating two competing theories about the function of a particular nucleus in the brain.

Testing a synthetic growth hormone said to have the potential of increasing meat production. Veterinary: Attempting to find a cure for a brain disease that is killing both domestic cats and endangered species of wild cats. Evaluating a potential cure for a debilitating disease that afflicts many young adult humans. After reading the case materials, each participant was asked to decide whether or not to withdraw "Dr. Wissen's" authorization to conduct the research, to rate on a 9-point scale how justified the research is, from "not at all" to "completely," to complete Forsyth's (1980) Ethics Position Questionnaire (EPQ), and to provide some demographic information, including gender. The Ethics Position Questionnaire The EPQ consists of 20 Likert-type items, each with a 9-point response scale from completely disagree to completely agree. Responses to the first ten items are averaged to produce an idealism score, and responses to the second ten items are averaged to produce a relativism score. Most of the items on the idealism questionnaire refer to the possibility of causing harm to another (the strict idealist assumes that any action which causes any harm is morally wrong). Item 1, for example, reads "a person should make certain that their actions never intentionally harm another even to a small degree." Two ofthe idealism items refer to cost-benefit analysis. Item 3 reads "the existence of potential harm to others is always wrong, irrespective of the benefits to be gained." and Medical:

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TABLE 1

Effect of Scenario on Percentage of Participants Voting to Allow the Research to Continue and Participants' Mean Justification Score
Justification

Scenario Theory Meat Cosmetic Veterinary Medical

Percentage Support

M 4.25 4.79 4.02 4.98 5.21

SD (2.14) (2.16) (2.32) (2.11) (2.49)

31 37 40 41 54

Item 7 reads "deciding whether or not to perform an act by balancing the positive consequences of the act against the negative consequences of the act is immoral." The items on the relativism scale ask whetber or not there are universal moral rules (the relativist believes that tbere are not). Item 12, for example, reads "what is ethical varies from one situation and society to anotber," and Item 16 reads "moral standards are simply personal rules wbich indicate how a person should behave, and ate not to be applied in making judgments of others." Forsyth (1980) reported Cronbach's alpha of .80 for the idealism scale and .73 for the relativistn scale. Test-retest reliabilities were .67 for the idealism scale and .66 f6r tbe relativism scale. The EPQ scales' validity was supported by the observation of tbe expected pattern of correlations witb otber measutes of ethical perspectives and witb participants' attitudes on contempotary moral issues (Forsytb, 1980). RESULTS The EPQ Our students scored sligbtly higher on the idealism scale (M = 6.49. SD = 1.33) than did Forsytb's (1980) students (M = 6.35, SD =: 1.17), and slightly lower (M = = 6.05, SD = 1.12) than Forsyth's (M = 6.18, SD = 1.13) on the relativism scale. Scores on both scales were distributed approximately normally with minor negative skewness. Cronbach's alpha was .85 for tbe idealism scale and .71 for the relativism scale, values not much different from tbose reported by Forsytb (1980).

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TABLE 2
Predictor Gender Idealism Relativism Scenario Cosmetic Theory Meat Veterinary

Logistic Regression Predicting Decision From Gender. Ideology, and Scenario B 1.25 -.70 .33 -.71 -1.16 -.87 -.54
Wald X '

P <.OO1 <.OOI .01 .091 .007 .041 .186

Odds Ratio 3.51 .50 1.39 .49 .31 .42 .58

20.59 37.89 6.63 2.85 7.35 4.16 1.75

Stop or Continue the Research? As shown in Table 1, only the medical research received support from a majority of the respondents. Overall a majority of respondents (59%) voted to stop the research. Logistic regression analysis was employed to predict the probability that a participant would approve the continuation ofthe research. The predictor variables were participant's gender, idealism, relativism, and four dummy variables coding the scenario. The continuous predictor variables were approximately normally distributed within each ofthe dependent groups, and the variances were stable. Logistic regression was chosen over discriminant function analysis because we wanted to evaluate simultaneously the effects of two continuous predictors, one dichotomous predictor, and one qualitative predictor. Atest of thefull model versus a model with intercept only was statistically significant, X'^ (7, N = 315) = 87.51. p < .001. The model was able correctly to classify 73% of those who approved continuing the research and 70% of those who did not, for an overall success rate of 71%. Table 2 shows the logistic regression coefficient, Wald test, and odds ratio for each of the predictors. Employing a .05 criterion of statistical significance, gender, idealism, relativism, and two of the scenario dummy variables had significant partial effects. The odds ralio for gender indicates that when holding all other variables constant a man is 3.5 times more likely to approve the research than is a woman. Inverting the odds ratio for idealism reveals that for each one point increase on the 9-point idealism scale there is a doubling ofthe odds that the participant will not approve the research. Although significant, the effect of relativism was much smaller than that of idealism, with a one

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point increase on the 9-point idealism scale being associated with the odds of approving the research increasing by a multiplicative factor of 1.39. The scenario variable was dummy coded using the medical scenario (which we anticipated would be the group which was most supported) as the reference group. Only the theory and the meat scenarios were approved significantly less than the medical scenario. The negative B coefficients and odds ratios less than one for each of the scenario dummy variables simply reflects the fact that support for continuation of the research was greater with the medical scenario (the reference group) than with any of the other scenarios. Inverted odds ratios for these dummy variables indicate that the odds of approval for the medical scenario were 2.38 times higher than for the meat scenario and 3.22 times higher than for the theory scenario. Univariate descriptive statistics showed that men were more likely to approve the research (59%) than were women (30%). Those who approved the research were less idealistic (M = 5.87, SD = 1.23) than those who didn't (M = 6.92, SD - 1.22). Those who approved the research were more relativistic (M = 6.26, SD = 0.99) than those who didn't (M=: 5.91, SD= 1.19). Justification Scores An analysis of covariance was used to predict participants' justification scores from their idealism, relativism, gender, and scenario. There were no significant interactions between predictors, but each predictor had a significant main effect. Idealism was negatively associated with justification , |3 = -0.32, r = -0.36, F( 1, 303) = 40.93, p < .001, relativism was positively associated with justification, (3 = .20, r = .22, F( 1, 303) = 15.39, p < .001, mean justification was higher for men (M = 5.30. SD 2.25) than for women (M = 4.28, SD = 2.21),F( 1,303)= 13.24, p< .001, and scenario had a significant omnibus effect (see the means in Table I). F(4, 303) = 3.61, p = .007. Using the medical scenario as the reference group, the cosmetic and the theory scenarios were found to be significantly less justified. Predictive Value of Individual Items from the Idealism Scale For exploratory purposes we condticted post hoc stepwise regression analyses using the items on the idealism questionnaire to predict participants' justification scores and their decision whether or not to stop the research. Although every single item on the idealism questionnaire was significantly correlated with the decision, and all but one with the justification scores, in the stepwise analysis (using a .05 criterion of significance for entry into the model), only Item 3 entered the model for

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predicting justification score; and only Item 3 and Item 7 for predicting decision. DISCUSSION There are several reasons not to be surprised that so many participants voted to stop the ongoing research: (a) The research being evaluated was invasive (brain surgery) and led to the death of the animal, (b) the species being studied was one commonly kept as a pet, and (c) the case was presented as a complaint filed by students concerned about the treatment of research animals. We acknowledge that these factors likely contributed to the high percentage voting to stop the research (59%). We had hoped for about a 50/50 split, which would make it easier to detect the effects of our predictor variables. When Galvin and Herzog' s (1992b) participants evaluated a proposal for brain surgery research to be done on monkeys, the percentage who voted to deny permission to start the research (58%) was nearly identical to the percentage of our participants who voted to stop ongoing brain surgery research on cats. As we anticipated, our medical scenario, which suggested health benefits for college-aged humans, was the most acceptable research, the only one which enjoyed majority (54%) support. It should be noted, however, that nearly half (46%) of our participants voted to stop the research even with this medical scenario. We had expected that the cosmetic research would be the most frequently stopped, so we were surprised that it fared as well as it did. Perhaps many of our participants considered cosmetic research important because they are consumers of cosmetics and concerned about the safety of those products. We were also surprised at how poorly received the theoretical research was. Apparently the teachers in our department have not convinced our students that testing psychological theory is of very great importance. The largest effects obtained in our research were those of gender and idealism. Comparing the Wald y} statistics with one another or the analysis of covariance F statistics with one another makes it clear that the effects of scenario and relativism, although significant, are small in comparison to the effects of idealism and gender. As noted earlier, women have consistently been found to be more critical of animal research and more concerned with animal rights than are men (Broida et al., 1993; Driscoll, 1992; Gallup & Beckstead, 1988; Galvin & Herzog. 1992a,b; Herzog, Betchart,&Pittman, 1991;Plous, 1991, 1996a, 1996b). It has been argued that women base moral judgments on an ethic of caring, while men use an ethic of justice (Gilligan, 1982). A significant correlation (r= .53) has been reported between idealism and a measure of

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the ethic of caring (Forsyth, Nye, & Kelley, 1988). Might our observed gender difference in evaluation of animal research be due to idealism and caring mediating the effect of gender? Although there was a small but significant association between gender and idealism among our participants (with the women being more idealistic, r = .13), idealism was nol an important variable intervening between gender and evaluation of ihe research. For both the logistic regression and the analysis of covariance: the effects we reported for each predictor were unique effects, that is, the effect ofthe predictor above and beyond that due to its overlap with other predictors in the model. Previous investigations ofthe relationship between ethical ideology and attitudes towards animals (Galvin & Herzog, 1992a), the evaluation of animal research proposals (Galvin & Herzog, 1992b), and the evaluation of anti-animal research propaganda (Nickell & Herzog, 1996) have yielded significant effects of idealism but not of relativism. Our results indicate significant effects of botb idealism and relativism, witb support for animal research being negatively associated witb idealism and positively associated witb relativism. It should be noted that although statistically significant, the effect of relativism was much smaller in magnitude than that of idealism. The stepwise regression analysis revealed that Items 3 and 7 of the idealism scale were the best predictors of participants' decisions. Bolh of these items refer to cost-benefit analysis. Perhaps tbe association between idealism and nonacceptance of animal research is mostly due to the idealist's reluctance to engage in ethical cost-benefit analysis. Our participants did read the researcher's explanation of the benefits of the animal research, but for the idealist the existence of any costs (harm to the animals) renders the research immoral, regardless of the benefits to be derived from the research. Supporters of animal research frequently stress the benefits (especially benefits to human health) of such research (Miller, 1985; National Academy of Sciences, 1991). It would seem unlikely that such arguments would persuade an idealist. On the other hand, most of Galvin and Herzog's (1992b) participants did use costbenefit analysis, so we should expect both supporters and opponents of animal research to continue the debate over whether or not the benefits of animal research justify its costs. While the predictors employed in the presently reported research did achieve some success in accounting for the participants' decisions (71% success rate) and their justification scores (24% of the variance), it is clear that much of the variance in the dependent variables remains unexplained. Some of this variance might be explained by personality variables such as those studied by Broida ct al. (1993). We are currently

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involved in research s t u d y i n g the influence of a n t h r o p o c e n t r i s m ( C h a n dler & Dreger, 1993; D r e g e r & C h a n d l e r , 1993) and m i s a n t h r o p y upon attitudes a b o u t a n i m a l s and animal r e s e a r c b .

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