PSYCHOLOGY STUDENTS BELIEFS ABOUT ANIMALS AND ANIMAL EXPERIMENTATION

This study set out to ascertain the beliefs and knowledge about animals and animal experimentation of over 200 students all applying to read psychology al University. The subjects completed a modified and extended version of the Furnham and Pinder (1990, The Psychologists, 10, 444-448) attitude to animals scale. They also indicated their knowledge about the amount and type of experimentation done in Great Britain. Finally they indicated what they believed that six groups of animals (rodents, cats, primates, insects, birds and dogs) were capable of, in terms of thought (e.g. 'what another animal is thinking'; 'what happened to them yesterday') emotion (e.g. 'happiness'; 'sadness' 'joy') and behaviour (e.g. 'unselfishly'; 'dishonourably'). The results were similar to those reported by Furnham and Pinder (1990) but subjects' knowledge of experimentation was poor.