Differences in General and Specific Attitudes Toward Animals by Diet and Gender

Recent research indicates that the same ingroup-outgroup disposition responsible for the psychological representation of human-human relations can be applied to human-animal relations. This work aimed to study the differences between general attitudes toward animals and specific attitudes toward different animal categories (pets, pests, and profitable animals) and explore whether those differences vary by people's diet and gender. A mixed-design ANOVA was performed on a sample of 285 participants. The results showed that vegetarians/vegans scored more positively in general and specific attitudes toward animals than omnivores, except when evaluating pets. Female and male participants evaluated animals in general, and pets, similarly. Furthermore, vegetarians/vegans had fewer differences in their scores among the different attitudinal objects in comparison with omnivores. The findings of this study show that general attitudes toward animals differ from attitudes toward specific types of animal and that they vary according to dietary choice and gender. Therefore, for future research in human-animal interaction, we recommend measuring attitudes toward specific types of animal.