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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Sep 23, 2025

Transition of Farm Pigs to Research Pigs using a Designated Checklist followed by Initiation of Clicker Training - a Refinement Initiative

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Published on: August 21, 2021

Humans first: Why people value animals less than humans.

Lucius Caviola¹, Stefan Schubert², Guy Kahane²

¹Department of Psychology, Harvard University, USA.

|May 15, 2022

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Moral anthropocentrism, prioritizing humans over animals, is primarily driven by speciesism, favoring one's own species, rather than solely by perceived differences in mental capacity. This bias persists even when animals possess superior cognitive abilities.

Keywords:

Animals Anthropocentrism Moral judgments Speciesism

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Area of Science:

Moral Psychology
Comparative Cognition
Ethics

Background:

Humans routinely grant moral priority to their own species over other animals.
The basis for this moral anthropocentrism is debated: perceived mental capacity differences versus inherent species favoritism (speciesism).

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the primary drivers of moral anthropocentrism.
To determine whether species membership or mental capacity differences are more influential in moral prioritization.

Main Methods:

Six studies involving 2217 participants were conducted.
Participants evaluated moral priority for humans and animals described with varying mental capacities.
Explored sub-factors of speciesism, including species-relativism and pro-human species-absolutism.

Main Results:

Most participants prioritized humans over animals, irrespective of described mental capacities.
Species membership (speciesism) was the key driver, outweighing individual or species-typical mental capacity.
Participants valued mental capacity more for animals than humans, a potentially speciesist tendency.

Conclusions:

Speciesism is the primary explanation for moral anthropocentrism.
Beliefs about human mental superiority contribute but are secondary to species-based favoritism.
Speciesism may encompass distinct sub-factors like species-relativism and species-absolutism.