… To explain the individual variation in respect for animal rights, we drew on survey data collected by the General Social Survey (GSS) in 1993, 1994 and 2008 from roughly 1,500 Americans. The GSS asked questions both about support for animal rights and human rights, as well as a host of questions that capture various traits we believed might be correlated with support for animal rights. These traits include political ideology, wealth, religious beliefs, and gender.
We found that political conservatives and more religious Americans were less likely to support animal rights. Women were much more likely than men to support them. Most interestingly, however, we found that attitudes about LGBT rights, universal health care, welfare for the poor, improving conditions of African Americans, and supporting birthright citizenship for U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants were strongly associated with views about animal rights. Some of these effects were very large. CONT.
Yon Soo Park (Harvard) & Benjamin Valentino (Dartmouth), Monkey Cage