Video: Dolphin asks for Help

Cat Bites and Depression

A new analysis of University of Michigan Health System electronic health records dating from 1998 onwards demonstrated some interesting connections.  It so often suggested that dogs bites might act as an indication that a household is at risk and other forms of abuse might be occurring. But assumptions of this type are not supported by data, The researchers in this case looked for connections between different health problems with no particularly a priori hypothesis.  They found that seeking treatment for a cat bite was associated with subsequent depression.  the actually cause link (probably indirect) is not clear.

See:

• Describing the Relationship between Cat Bites and Human Depression Using Data from an Electronic Health Record 
• Cat Bites and Human Depression [The Data Miners' Tale] - See more at: http://www.improbable.com/2013/09/05/cat-bites-and-human-depression-the-data-miners-tale/#sthash.kBgJdWmd.dpuf

National Link Coalition updates

The National Link Coalition has an updated website and Facebook page.

Empathy for humans and animals

One of the common criticisms made of people who work in animal welfare fields is that they should be helping humans, and that helping animals instead of humans is somehow wrong.  I have always rather suspected that these armchair ethicists are opting out of helping anyone at all, but perhaps that is overly suspicious of me.

A paper by Signal and Taylor (2007) however does established that people in the animal protection community do care about people, in fact more so than a general community sample.  Quite how anyone think callous treatment of animals will enhance compassion towards people... well, I don't know.

• Signal TD & Taylor N. (2007). Attitude to animals and empathy: comparing animal protection and general community samples. Anthrozoos, 20, 125-130.

The Gender Disparity (in progress)

Proportion of Animal Abusers who are Male
93%, 83/89 (Desnoyers 2009)--Rhode Island defendants charged with animal cruelty

References:

• Desnoyers RC (2009). What we can learn about animal cruelty cases from Rhode Island: research and perspective. Animal Law Newsletter, Spring.

See also:

• Gerbasi, K.C. (2004). Gender and nonhuman animal cruelty convictions: data from pet-abuse.com. Society and Animals, 12, 358-365.

How to Avoid Abusive Attitudes

While attention is often given to the connection between violence against animals and violence against people, the implication is that compassion towards animals with foster compassion towards people.

Costello and Hodson (2009) conducted a fascinating study of Canadian undergraduates that showed that

• People who saw humans and non-humans animals as fundamentally different were more likely to have negative/dehumanising attitudes towards immigrants, and
• that people provide with material emphasising the continuity between species became less prejudiced in their attitudes towards immigrants.

There seems to be an innate human tendency to justify dominance of one group over another, by reference to biological differences between the two somehow rendering differences in power and control "natural" (see: Harrawy, 1978). Thus, emphasising and being sensitive to essential similarities between groups and work against this influence.

However the situation may not be as simple as 'more empathy for animals=less violence to animals and people'.  Marten et al (2007) found that people people who felt they were more similar to bugs tended to kill fewer bugs in a self-paced experimental setting were they were encourage to put the insects into a killing apparatus.  But this group actually killed more bugs and enjoyed the killing more after being 'primed' by being instructed to make five kills.  Those who felt they were not similar to bugs made fewer voluntary kills under the same circumstances.  The authors suggest that perceived similarity reduces willingness to kill, but when one does kill it activates defense mechanisms to neutralise or even reverse the aversiveness of the killing activity.

Sources

• Costello K, Hodson G. (2009) Exploring the roots of dehumanisation: the role of animal-human similarity in promoting immigrant humanization. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 13, 3-22.
• Harraway, D. (1978). Animal sociology and a natural economy of the body politic, part 1: a political physiology of dominance. Signs, 4, 21-27(?).
• Martens A, Kosloff S, Greenberg J, Landau MJ, Schmader T. (2007). Killing begets killing: evidence from a bug-killing paradigm that initial killing fuels subsequent killing. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 1251-1264.

Slaughter

The slaughter of animals for meat is a cause of considerable cultural anxiety.  Even people at complete peace with being carnivores tend not to want to see, or know about, the slaughter process.

By contrast there is a 'New Carnivore' movement where slaughter and butcher are presented as empowering and even spiritual activities (see Parry, 2010).

Most people experience an initial reluctance to kill animals, however  this resistance may be rapidly broken down when a person first kills an animal under the instructions of another (Martens et al, 2007; Martens, Kosloff, Jackson, 2010).

• Martens A, Kosloff S, Greenberg J, Landau MJ, Schmader T. (2007). Killing begets killing: evidence from a bug-killing paradigm that initial killing fuels subsequent killing. Pers Soc Psychol Bull, 33, 1251-1264.
• Martens, A., Kosloff, S, Jackson, LE. (2010). Evidence that initial obedient killing fuels subsequent volitional killing beyond the effects of practice. Social Psychology and Personality Science, 1, 268-273.
• Parry, J. (2010) Gender and slaughter in popular gastronomy. Feminism and Psychology, 20, 381-396.