Short Communication
Social dominance orientation connects prejudicial human–human and human–animal relations

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2013.12.020Get rights and content

Highlights

  • We test whether and why human–human and human–animal biases are related.

  • We confirm that speciesism is associated with negative ethnic outgroup attitudes.

  • Social dominance orientation (SDO) accounted for this association.

  • Ideological individual differences (SDO) link inter-human and inter-species biases.

Abstract

Recent theorizing suggests that biases toward human outgroups may be related to biases toward (non-human) animals, and that individual differences in desire for group dominance and inequality may underlie associations between these biases. The present investigation directly tests these assumptions. As expected, the results of the current study (N = 191) demonstrate that endorsing speciesist attitudes is significantly and positively associated with negative attitudes toward ethnic outgroups. Importantly, individual differences in social dominance orientation accounted for the association between speciesist and ethnic outgroup attitudes; that is, these variables are associated due to their common association with social dominance orientation that underpins these biases. We conclude that social dominance orientation represents a critical individual difference variable underlying ideological belief systems and attitudes pertaining to both human–human intergroup and human–animal relations.

Introduction

Lay people generally believe that human–human intergroup biases, such as prejudice against immigrants, are largely unrelated to human–animal relations, such as exploiting animals for our own purposes (Costello & Hodson, in press a). Yet recent research supporting an Interspecies Model of Prejudice (Costello and Hodson, 2013b, Hodson and Costello, 2012, Hodson et al., 2013) demonstrates that seeing humans as different from and superior to animals plays a key role in animalistically dehumanizing human outgroups (e.g., immigrants; Blacks) and negatively evaluating those outgroups. Indeed, “the very act of treating [outgroups] like animals would lose its meaning if animals were treated well”. (Plous, 2003, p. 510). In fact, “elevating” animals to the status of humans by emphasizing their similarity to humans significantly improves attitudes and moral inclusiveness toward human outgroups (Bastian et al., 2012, Costello and Hodson, 2010). Thus biases toward human outgroups appear related to biases toward non-human animals, and individual differences in desire for group dominance may underlie any associations between these biases. The present investigation directly tests these previously untested assumptions.

Social dominance theory (SDT) is a conceptual framework explaining group-based hierarchy and oppression in society (Pratto et al., 1994, Sidanius and Pratto, 1999). Central to SDT is the proposition that people vary in their levels of social dominance orientation (SDO; Pratto et al., 1994), the fundamental desire to achieve and maintain group-based dominance and inequality among social groups. SDO is a reliable predictor of a wide range of intergroup attitudes across different contexts and domains, including racial and ethnic prejudice and sexism (e.g., Hodson and Esses, 2005, Kteily et al., 2012, Pratto et al., 1994, Roets et al., 2012, Sibley and Duckitt, 2010). Furthermore, research has shown that distinct ideological belief systems, such as political conservatism and racism, are correlated with one another due to a general desire for group-based dominance (Sidanius, Pratto, & Bobo, 1996). That is, individual differences in SDO underlie the linkages between these beliefs. As such, SDO accounts for the significant association between different ideological belief systems within the domain of human–human intergroup relations.

Although this social dominance perspective was conceived to explain group-based hierarchy among human groups, this framework can be broadened to explain individual differences in dominance strivings of humans over animals (Costello and Hodson, 2010, Costello and Hodson, 2013b, Hyers, 2006) and over the natural environment (Milfont, Richter, Sibley, Wilson, & Fischer, 2013). As with racial and ethnic prejudice, speciesism is an expression of underlying competitive-power motives of social dominance and support for hierarchy and inequality between groups, here between humans and animals (Allen et al., 2000, Sidanius and Pratto, 1999). Supporting this view, SDO predicts greater beliefs that humans are distinct from and superior to animals (Costello & Hodson, 2010), and predicts greater acceptance of animal exploitation and more meat consumption (e.g., Allen et al., 2000, Hyers, 2006). Furthermore, children of high-SDO parents also hold greater human supremacy beliefs over animals (Costello & Hodson, in press b).

Integrating recent findings about the psychological underpinnings of human–animal relations with the traditional focus of SDT on human outgroup prejudice, SDO conceptually represents the key individual difference variable underlying ideological belief systems and attitudes pertaining to both human–human intergroup and human–animal relations. Consequentially, we expected that speciesist attitudes are positively correlated with human outgroup attitudes because both belief systems are underpinned by a general desire for group-based dominance and inequality. This conceptual argument has been raised previously (Costello and Hodson, 2013a, Costello and Hodson, 2013b, Hodson and Costello, 2012, Hodson et al., 2013), but no empirical evidence has tested this theoretical presumption. In the same manner that SDO represents an “underlying psychological motive” (Sidanius et al., 1996, p. 484) connecting conservatism and racism, SDO presumably links generalized prejudices toward human ethnic outgroups and speciesist attitudes toward non-human animals. Specifically, we predicted that: (a) speciesist and ethnic prejudice are positively correlated (Hypothesis 1); and (b) individual differences in SDO account for this association (Hypothesis 2), with speciesist and ethnic outgroup prejudice only correlated due to their common association with SDO.

Section snippets

Method

Undergraduate psychology students (N = 209) at a Canadian university completed relevant measures during a course seminar. Eighteen self-identifying members of two or more target outgroups were excluded from analyses, leaving 191 participants (78.5% females; Mage = 20.47 years, SDage = 3.73).

Respondents completed a shortened 6-item SDO scale (α = .82; M = 2.11; SD = 1.02) on 7-point scales (1, strongly disagree; 7, strongly agree; Pratto et al., 1994; see Appendix A). To measure ethnic prejudice, respondents

Results

We analyzed the relationships among speciesism, ethnic prejudice, and SDO with latent variables analyses in Mplus (version 6.1, Muthen & Muthen, 1998–2011), using a robust maximum likelihood estimation. The original items indicated the latent factors. The proportion of missing values was negligible and never exceeded 1%; full information maximum likelihood method dealt with the missing data (Schafer & Graham, 2002). The correlational (measurement) model showed good model fit, χ2(149) = 220.36, p < 

Discussion

The Interspecies Model of Prejudice proposes that biases toward human outgroups are intrinsically related to biases toward non-human animals because a general desire for group-based dominance and inequality underpin both types of biases (Costello and Hodson, 2013b, Hodson and Costello, 2012, Hodson et al., 2013; see also Plous, 2003). The current research is the first to empirically confirm these theoretical assumptions.

First, those endorsing more speciesist attitudes also demonstrate more

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  • Cited by (0)

    1

    Kristof Dhont is a post-doctoral researcher supported by the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO, Belgium).

    2

    Address: 500 Glenridge Ave., St. Catharines, Ontario L2S 3A1, Canada.

    3

    Present address: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto Scarborough, 1245 Military Trail, Toronto, Ontario M1C 1A4 Canada.

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