Personality, empathy and attitudes to animal welfare

A total of 833 students completed a four-part questionnaire which measured demographic factors (sex, education, vegetarianism, religiousness), attitudes to animal experimentation, personality (Big Five) and empathy. Attitudes to animal experimentation factored into five interpretable factors, and multiple regression analyses were used to examine the extent to which demographic factors, personality and empathy predicted these. Sex, vegetarianism, Agreeableness, Openness, Extraversion and empathy were significant predictors of all these factors. Results showed an interpretable set of correlates that were similar to previous studies in the area. As with previous research findings, the measures used predicted only a small amount of variance with respect to attitudes to animals. (C) 2003 International Society for Anthrozoology.