Ethical Ideology and Moral Persuasion: Personal Moral Philosophy, Gender, and Judgments of Pro- and Anti-Animal Research Propaganda

Darcy Nickell and Harold A. Herzog, Jr.

Western Carolina University

We examined the relationship between personal moral philosophy, gender, and judgments of the effectiveness of materials designed by advocacy groups to sway public opinion about biomedical research using non-human animals. Twenty-six male and 74 female undergraduates evaluated 16 advertisements or brochures developed by groups which either supported or opposed animal research. The subjects also completed the Ethics Position Questionnaire (EPQ) and were offered the opportunity to sign postcards urging their congressperson to either support or eliminate federal funding of animal research. Females perceived the anti-animal research materials to be more effective than did the males, a difference that was not found in the case of the pro-animal research materials. The idealism dimension of the EPQ and gender accounted for a significant portion of the variation in judgments of the effectiveness of the anti-animal research materials but not the pro-animal research materials. The pattern of postcard signing was predicted by the subjects' evaluations of the stimulus materials but not gender or the EPQ variables.


The debate over the use of animals in biomedical and behavioral research has grown increasingly acrimonious since the publication of Singer's influential book, Animal Liberation, nearly 20 years ago (Singer, 1975). Animal activist groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, and the New England Anti-Vivisection Society have launched highly visible publicity campaigns aimed at discrediting the use of animals in science both on ethical and scientific grounds. National biomedical research support groups such as the Foundation for Biomedical Research and the American Medical Association as well as state organizations (e.g., the North Carolina Association for Biomedical Research and the California Biomedical Research Association) have responded in kind. Though accurate statistics are not available, it is likely that tens of millions of dollars are spent annually in the United States in the battle for the proverbial hearts and minds on this issue.

These efforts have had an effect. Recent opinion polls suggest that the public is quite divided over the moral status of animals. For example, a nation-wide survey of 1,612 adults conducted in December, 1993 found that the respondents were equally divided in agreeing with or rejecting the statement, "Animals are just like people in all important ways." Thirty percent of those surveyed felt that laws protecting animals are inadequate (Balzar, 1993).

Despite its importance in terms of public policy, the social psychology of attitudes toward the use of animals has not received attention from researchers equal to issues such as abortion and homosexuality. There is, however, a relatively small yet growing body of literature on factors that are related to attitudes toward the treatment of animals. A variety of variables are known to influence these attitudes. These include demographic factors such as gender, geographic region, age, and religion (e.g., Bowd & Bowd, 1989; Driscoll, 1992; Kellert & Berry, 1987; Gallup & Beckstead, 1988); personality (Broida, Tingley, Kimball & Miele, 1993); and beliefs about animal mentality (Herzog & Galvin, in press). Little, however, is known about variables that affect responses to propaganda materials designed to sway attitudes toward the use of animals in behavioral and biomedical experiments. In the research reported here, we examined the influence of differences in personal moral philosophy and of gender on judgments of the effectiveness of propaganda materials produced by organizations that are opposed to and that advocate the use of animals in research.


Personal Moral Philosophy
Though seldom studied by psychologists, individual differences in personal moral philosophy are significant determinants of one's stance toward controversial ethical issues. Forsyth (1980) has shown that moral ideology--beliefs about the basis on which moral decisions should be made--is an important determinant of attitudes toward a variety of social and moral issues. Forsyth developed a two factor theory of the ethical judgment process. In this model, there are two dimensions to moral ideology: relativism and idealism. Relativism is the degree to which one rejects the belief that moral decisions should always conform to universal moral principles; some individuals do not accept the possibility of relying on moral absolutes in making ethical judgments, whereas others believe that one should behave according to absolute principles. Idealism is the degree to which individuals believe that moral behavior will inevitably produce positive consequences. Individuals holding an idealistic orientation assume that "doing the right thing" will always lead to desirable consequences. Individuals low in idealism believe that undesirable outcomes will often result even when one tries to behave in a moral fashion. Note that Forsyth's use of the term idealism is akin to colloquial meaning, a sort of moral optimism, rather than its technical philosophical usage (the metaphysical/epistomological position of Plato and Berkeley).

The Ethics Position Questionnaire (EPQ) was designed by Forsyth (1980) to assess differences among individuals along these two dimensions. The EPQ consists of 20 items written in Likert scale format. Half of the statements measure idealism (e.g., "If an action could harm an innocent other, then it should not be done."), and half measure relativism (e.g, "What is ethical varies from situation and society to another."). Both the idealism and relativism subscales of the EPQ have good internal consistency and test-retest reliabilities. The idealism and relativism scales were designed to be orthogonal and responses to the two scales are not statistically correlated. Idealism and relativism scores were originally used to classify individuals into one of four ideological categories (absolutists, subjectivists, exceptionists, and situationists). More recent investigations, however, have used the scales as continuous variables in regression analyses (Forsyth, Nye, & Kelley, 1987; Galvin & Herzog, 1992a; Singh & Forsyth, 1989; Weunsch, George, Poteat, Castellow, & Pryor, 1992).

EPQ scores have been found to be related to attitudes toward a number of divisive social issues including in vitro fertilization, euthanasia, homosexuality, and abortion (Forsyth, 1980). Individuals with low relativism and high idealism scores tend to hold negative attitudes toward non-traditional sexual behavior such as premarital and extramarital sex and homosexuality (Singh & Forsyth, 1989). The scales have also been found to be related to individual differences in judgments of the ethics of social psychology experiments (Forsyth & Pope, 1984; Schlenker & Forsyth, 1977). The two-factor theory of ethical judgment is quite different than stage models of moral reasoning, and there are no significant relationships between EPQ scores and Kohlberg's stages of moral development or the Defining Issues Test (Forsyth, 1980). Age, however, is slightly but significantly negatively correlated with both subscales, older individuals being less idealistic and less relativistic than younger subjects.

Not surprisingly, ethical ideology is related to attitudes toward the treatment of animals. Galvin and Herzog (1992a) found that animal rights activists who were attending a large national protest march were more likely to hold an absolutist moral orientation (high idealism, low relativism) and less likely to be classified as subjectivists (low idealism, high relativism) than a comparison group of college students. They also found that gender and EPQ idealism scores (but not relativism scores) were significantly related to attitudes toward the use of animals in a sample of non-activist students. Similarly, Wuensch, et al. (1992) reported that idealism correlated negatively and relativism positively with support for animal research.

EPQ scores have also been found to be related to decisions to approve or reject specific research proposals involving animals. Galvin and Herzog (1992b) asked college students to rate a series of hypothetical research proposals involving animal experimentation on ethical grounds. They found that the idealism dimension of the EPQ (but not the relativism dimension) was related to moral evaluations of the proposals. Wuensch et al. (1992) also had subjects judge the ethics of hypothetical research projects involving animals. The students were asked to vote to either terminate or continue the projects. Again, the EPQ idealism dimension was a significant predictor of the students' decisions.

Gender and Attitudes Toward the Treatment of Animals
Gender has consistently been found to be related to attitudes toward the treatment of animals with virtually all studies finding that women exhibit more sympathy than men toward non-human species (e.g., Broida, Tingley, Kimball & Miele, 1993; Driscoll, 1992; Kellert & Berry, 1987; Gallup & Beckstead, 1988). Most studies of the animal protection movement have found that rank and file women activists outnumber men by a ratio of two or three to one (Herzog, 1993; Jasper & Nelkin, 1992; Plous, 1991, Sperling, 1988). Galvin and Herzog (1992b) found that female students were significantly less likely to approve hypothetical animal research proposals than men. Several studies have recently found that empathy is related to experiences with animals and attitudes toward their use (Broida, Tingley, Kimball & Miele, 1993; Galvin & Herzog, 1994; Paul & Serpell, 1993), and sex differences in empathy may explain male-female variation in attitudes toward their treatment.

To summarize, there is a substantial body of literature indicating that personal moral philosophy and gender are related to one's stance concerning a variety of social issues, including ethical issues associated with the treatment of animals. In addition, recent studies suggest that moral idealism is a particularly important influence on attitudes toward the use of animals in research.

In the present study, we examined whether ethical ideology and gender affects responses to materials developed by interest groups to sway public opinion concerning the use of animals by scientists. The experiment had three goals. First, we investigated whether males and females differed in their response to the two types of stimulus materials. Second, we sought to determine if there was a relationship between the two dimensions of ethical ideology (idealism and relativism) and perceptions of pro- and anti- animal research materials. Third, we examined the relationship between ethical ideology and gender and an actual behavior--the subjects' decision to sign a postcard urging their congressperson to support or oppose federal funding for animal research.

Method

Subjects
The subjects were 26 male and 74 female undergraduate students enrolled in introductory psychology classes. The students were given the opportunity to participate as a subject in an experiment as one option in the research requirement for the course.

Materials and Methods
Each subject was given a research packet that included the Ethics Position Questionnaire along with a series of demographic questions. After they had completed the questionnaire, the subjects were asked to evaluate 16 pieces of literature designed by advocacy groups to influence attitudes about the use of animals in biomedical research. Eight of the items had been developed by groups opposed to animal research (e.g., the American Anti-Vivisection Society, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Last Chance for Animals). The other eight items had been developed by organizations supporting animal research (e.g., the American Medical Association, the North Carolina Association for Biomedical Research, the Foundation for Biomedical Research, the California Biomedical Research Association). The materials were presented in an album with one message or brochure per album page. The order of presentation of the material was counterbalanced to control for order effects.

Immediately after examining each piece of persuasive material, the subjects were asked to rate the effectiveness of the item in terms of (1) its emotional impact (referred to subsequently as emotion), (2) the degree to which it influenced their thinking on the issue (referred to as thinking), (3) the degree to which it would convince them to give money in support of the position taken (referred to as money), and (4) the degree to which it would convince them to sign a petition in favor of the position (referred to as petition). The subjects indicated their evaluation of the item on a 9 point scale where 1 meant that the material was judged to have extremely low impact and 9 indicated that it was judged to have extremely high impact. The subjects' scores were summed across the eight pro-animal research advertisements and the eight anti-animal research advertisements. Thus each subject was given a pro-animal research response score and an anti-animal research response score for each of the four variables.

Two postcards addressed to their congressperson were also included in the research packet. One of the postcards encouraged the congressperson to support federal funding for animal research; the other expressed opposition to continued federal funding of animal research. After the subjects had rated the stimulus materials, they were given the opportunity to sign either one, both, or none of the postcards. They were informed (accurately) that the postcards would be sent to the local congressperson at the conclusion of the study. A maximum of four participants were tested at each session.

Results

Ratings of Materials
Gender differences in the perceived effectiveness of the materials were analyzed using ANOVAs with gender as a between- subjects factor and type of advertisement (pro- versus anti-animal research) as a within-subjects factor. The mean ratings of the materials on each of the four variables are shown in Figure 1. On three of the four variables, females rated the advertisements as being

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Figure 1 here.
Figure 1. Mean effectiveness judgments by males and female of pro- and anti-animal research materials.
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more effective than did males [emotion, F(1,98) = 8.908, p = .004; thinking, F(1,98) = 7.778, p = .006; money, F(1,98) = 4.838, p = .030; petition, F(1,98) = .068, NS)]. In no case was there a significant main effect of type of advertisement (pro- versus anti-animal research). There were, however, significant interactions between gender and advertisement type in three of the variables [emotion, F(1,98) = 5.316, p = .02; thinking, F(1,98) = 6.652, p = .01; money, F(1,98) = 4.225, p = .04]. In the case of these variables, females tended to perceive the anti-research materials as more effective than did the males whereas males and females tended to view the pro-research materials as equally effective. This interaction was close to reaching significance in the perceived effectiveness of the material to motivate the subjects to sign a petition, F(1,98) = 3.542, p = .06.

We assessed the relationship between the ethical ideology, gender and the judgments of the stimulus material using stepwise multiple regression with the idealism and relativism EPQ scores and gender as independent variables and the ratings of the materials as dependent variables. Separate regressions were performed for the responses to the pro- and anti-animal research materials. The relative contributions of idealism, relativism and gender to judgments of the anti-research set of materials for each of the four ratings are shown in Table 1. The EPQ idealism scores accounted for a significant portion of the variation in response to all four of the questions for the anti-animal research materials. Gender accounted for a significant portion of the variation in responses to three of the four questions (the exception was the question related to signing petitions). Relativism scores, on the other hand, did not account for a significant portion of the variation for any of the questions. Together, the EPQ variables and gender accounted for between 10% and 20% of the variance in the ratings of this set of materials.

Table 1. Relative Contributions (Beta) of Gender, EPQ Idealism, and EPQ Relativism to the Prediction of the Evaluations of Materials Opposing Animal Research.

A quite different pattern of results, however, emerged from the analysis of responses to the pro-research advertisements. For this set of materials, neither gender nor either of the EPQ subscales accounted for a significant portion of the variation in any of the judgment variables.

Predicting Behavior

Discriminant analyses (direct entry method) were used to examine the influence of gender and ethical ideology on behavior (signing the postcard addressed to the congressperson). Forty-five subjects signed the anti-animal research postcard and 35 signed the pro-animal research postcards. Seventeen subjects did not sign either postcard, and three subjects signed both. (The three who signed both were excluded from subsequent analyses.) In the first discriminant analysis, we used gender and the idealism and relativism scores on the EPQ to try to predict which, if any, of the postcards to the congressperson the subjects would sign. The discriminant function in this analysis was not significant, Wilks' lambda=.956, canonical (r) = .18, X2 (6) = 4.17, p = .653, indicating that these variables were not related to decisions to sign the postcards.

In a second discriminant analysis, we examined the relationship between judgments of the effectiveness of the materials to motivate the subjects to sign a petition and their pattern of signing. We did this by calculating two "petition" scores for each subject. These scores were derived by summing the subjects' scores on Item 4 of the questionnaire across the eight pro-animal research materials and the eight anti-animal research materials. (Item 4 asked about the effectiveness of the advertisement to motivate the subject to sign a petition.) These scores were used as the independent variables in a discriminant analysis with the post card signing pattern as the dependent variable.

In this analysis, the discriminant function was significant. The petition scores did predict which, if any, postcards the subjects signed (tau = .601, Wilk's lambda = .532, canonical r = .67, X2 (4) = 58.99, p < .001. The discriminant function loaded on the subjects' judgments of the materials' effectiveness in motivating them to sign a petition opposing animal research (r = -.61) and supporting animal research (r = .69). In 70% of the cases, the subject's signing pattern was accurately predicted by their petition scores. Thus, there was a relationship between the subjects' reported judgments about the effectiveness of the material to motivate their behavior to sign a petition and their actual behavior when offered the opportunity to send a message to their congressperson.

Discussion

Our results show that judgments of the effectiveness of materials designed to sway public opinion about animal research are influenced by an interaction between the ideological stance advocated by the advertisement and variables related to the perceiver (i.e., gender, ethical ideology). In this case, females and subjects high in moral idealism perceived the anti-animal research materials to be more effective than did males and those low in ethical idealism. But, this relationship did not hold for judgments of the effectiveness of the pro-animal research materials.

The relationship between attitudes and behavior is complex. For several decades social psychologists have noted that many empirical studies have reported quite weak relationships between what individuals say they believe and how they behave. Forsyth and Berger (1982) investigated the relationship between ethical ideology and moral behavior in a study in which subjects who had taken the EPQ were put in a position in which they were tempted to cheat on a test administered in a laboratory setting. They reported that EPQ classification was not related to cheating behavior. These results are consistent with the present study in which we found that neither the idealism nor relativism scales predicted whether or not the participants signed a postcard to their congressperson.

On the other hand, it is clear that beliefs and behavior are sometimes related. Several recent studies have indicated that while attitudes often fail to predict single behavioral measures, moderate to high correlations can be found when using aggregated behavioral measures (see Eagly and Chaiken, 1993 for a review of this issue). Ethical ideology is, like attributional style (Peterson, Semmel, von Baeyer, Abramson, Metalsky & Seligman, 1982) an "outlook on life" dimension rather than an attitude toward a specific issue. Variables such as optimism and pessimism have been found to be correlated with behavioral tendencies such as depression (e.g., Peterson & Seligman, 1984).

Likewise, while moral judgment systems may not be highly correlated to single behaviors, we feel it is premature to dismiss ethical ideology as a factor in how one lives one's life. Indeed, Galvin and Herzog (1992a) found that animal activists were much more likely to be absolutist and less likely to be situationist in ethical thinking than a comparison group of college students. It is quite possible that moral orientation predisposes some individuals toward involvement in social causes and virtually inoculates others from this type of involvement (Herzog, in press). Unfortunately, most research on moral orientation has focused on samples of college students. Studies are needed examining the ethical paradigms of individuals having unusually high levels of commitment to social and moral issues.

It is not surprising to find that a relationship exists between moral orientation and the willingness to be persuaded by information related to a social issue. Note, however, that idealism but not relativism was related to perceptions of the propaganda materials used as stimuli in this study. Further, idealism was significantly related to the perceived effectiveness of the anti- but not the pro-research materials. It has been argued that an ethic based on caring is an important component in the psychological dynamics of animal activism (e.g., Shapiro, 1994). Forsyth, Nye and Kelley (1987) investigated the relationship between the EPQ and a scale designed to assess individual differences in the belief that morality should be based on an ethic of caring. They found that the idealism scale was much more highly correlated with belief in caring as an ethical principle (r = .53) than the relativism scale (r = -.13). These results are consistent with studies that have found that idealism is a better predictor of general attitudes toward the treatment of animals than relativism (Galvin & Herzog, 1992b; Wuensch, et al. 1992). Together, these studies lend empirical support to the supposition that moral idealism and caring are part of a constellation of values that is an important determinant of attitudes toward the treatment of animals.

Note that this study was not intended to directly compare the advertising strategies of the various advocacy groups involved in the debate over vivisection; our findings cannot be construed as showing that materials produced by animal rights groups are generally more or less effective than materials developed by biomedical research support organizations. Such a comparison would require that the stimulus materials in the study be randomly drawn from the "population" of materials produced by pro- and anti-animal research organizations.

Our results do suggest, however, that perceptions of materials designed to change attitudes about divisive issues such as animal experimentation are a product of both the ideological slant of the material and the personal moral philosophy (and in the case of animal research, gender) of the perceiver. Thus, the optimal strategy used in the design of material supporting one side of the issue may be quite different from the best approach in swaying opinion toward the other side.

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