Why We Love and Exploit Animals Bridging Insights from Academia and Advocacy

This unique book brings together research and theorizing on human-animal relations, animal advocacy, and the factors underlying exploitative attitudes and behaviors towards animals. Why do we both love and exploit animals? Assembling some of the world’s leading academics and with insights and experiences gleaned from those on the front lines of animal advocacy, this pioneering collection breaks new ground, synthesizing scientific perspectives and empirical findings. The authors show the complexities and paradoxes in human-animal relations and reveal the factors shaping compassionate versus exploitative attitudes and behaviors towards animals. Exploring topical issues such as meat consumption, intensive farming, speciesism, and effective animal advocacy, this book demonstrates how we both value and devalue animals, how we can address animal suffering, and how our thinking about animals is connected to our thinking about human intergroup relations and the dehumanization of human groups. This is essential reading for students, scholars, and professionals in the social and behavioral sciences interested in human-animal relations, and will also strongly appeal to members of animal rights organizations, animal rights advocates, policy makers, and charity workers.

Acknowledgements Loving and exploiting animals: An introduction Kristof Dhont and Gordon Hodson The animal in me: Understanding what brings us closer and pushes us away from other animals Brock Bastian and Catherine Amiot The psychology of speciesism Kristof Dhont, Gordon Hodson, Ana C. Leite, and Alina Salmen Putting the "Free" back in freedom: The failure and future of animal welfare science Jessica Pierce Devaluing animals, "animalistic" humans, and people who protect animals Gordon Hodson, Kristof Dhont, and Megan Earle Kittens, pigs, rats, and apes: The psychology of animal metaphors Nick Haslam, Elise Holland, and Michelle Stratemeyer Uncanny valley of the apes Vanessa Woods and Brian Hare Why people love animals yet continue to eat them Jared Piazza Featherless chickens and puppies that glow in the dark: Moral heuristics and the concept of animal "naturalness" Christopher J. Holden and Harold Herzog Accomplishing the most good for animals Jon Bockman The meat paradox Steve Loughnan and Thomas Davies How we love and hurt animals: Considering cognitive dissonance in young meat eaters Hank Rothgerber Humane hypocrisies: Making killing acceptable John Sorenson The end of factory farming: Changing hearts, minds, and the system Gene Baur Steakholders: How pragmatic strategies can make the animal protection movement more effective Tobias Leenaert Animals as social groups: An intergroup relations analysis of human-animal conflicts Verónica Sevillano and Susan T. Fiske The moral march to meatless meals: The scripted Hebrew meat prohibitions versus the unscripted path to becoming vegetarian or vegan Paul Rozin and Matthew B. Ruby The ground of animal ethics Carol J. Adams and Matthew Calarco So why do we love but exploit animals? Reflections and solutions Gordon Hodson and Kristof Dhont

Kristof Dhont, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Kent, UK,and Director of SHARKLab, studying human intergroup and human-animal relations. He investigates the psychological factors underpinning speciesism, racism, and sexism and serves as Associate Editor (Group Processes & Intergroup Relations) and Consulting Editor (European Journal of Personality). Gordon Hodson, PhD, is a Professor of Psychology at Brock University, Canada. His research interests include prejudice, dehumanization and speciesism, ideology, and intergroup contact. He is an Editor-in-Chief (European Review of Social Psychology) and Associate Editor (Group Processes & Intergroup Relations). He is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science.