Human-Animal Relations

Why do people love and care about animals, yet also eat and exploit them? This work-stream will focus on the social and moral psychology of human-animal relations and animal product consumption. We will explore the psychological and motivational factors that shape how people perceive and think about animals and will cover the psychology of speciesism, animal cruelty, and animal versus plant-based product consumption. We will also explore the impact of interventions and strategies related to animal abuse offending, prevention of animal cruelty, the reduction of animal product consumption, and support for animal welfare and rights. Throughout the sessions, we will highlight the theoretical and empirical overlap between research on human-animal relations and research in other social domains including human intergroup relations and interpersonal violence.

We will consider questions such as:

• How do people perceive and think about animals as a social group?
• What motivates people to continue or reduce animal product consumption?
• How can we reduce exploitative attitudes and behaviours towards animals, including animal abuse offending, animal product consumption, and speciesism?

Workstream Leaders

Kristof Dhont

Reader in Psychology at the University of Kent. He is the founder and director of SHARK Lab, dedicated to the study human intergroup and human-animal relations. He currently serves as Associate Editor for the journal Psychology of Human-Animal Intergroup Relations (PHAIR) and as President of the Society for the Psychology of Human-Animal Intergroup Relations (PHAIR Society). His research interests, broadly defined, include the psychological underpinnings and ideological roots of speciesism, racism, and sexism, and how to reduce them. He also investigates the factors that shape people’s perceptions and thinking about animals, the paradoxes in human-animal relations, and the moral psychology of eating and exploiting animals.

Emma Alleyne

Reader in Psychology at the University of Kent. She currently serves as Associate Editor for the journal Society & Animals, which captures the emerging field of human-animal studies from various disciplines within social sciences and humanities. Emma’s theoretical and empirical work examines the social, psychological, and behavioural factors that explain various types of aggressive behaviour. For example, her current research explores why adults engage in animal abuse, with the aim of identifying the key treatment needs for prevention and intervention purposes. She is particularly interested in how human-human versus human-animal empathy relates to animal abuse specifically and violence more broadly.

Christopher Hopwood

Professor of Personality Psychology at the University of Zurich, Editor in Chief of Psychology of Human-Animal Intergroup Relations, and has served as Associate Editor for Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science, and Journal of Personality Assessment. His work focuses on personality, psychopathology, and interpersonal processes, and he has a special interest in how humans think about non-human animals, and how this results in behaviour with significant consequences for social justice, climate change, and biodiversity.