They’re not like us: Competitive jungle beliefs predict speciesisim

Abstract

The sentiment that humans should be treated as superior to animals (i.e. speciesism) is often used to justify their exploitation. As it entails a strong belief of a hierarchy of importance among living beings, it might be embedded in a particular worldview. For example, unfair treatment of animals might be a manifestation of the naive Darwinian beliefs that the world is a competitive jungle in which we must fight over scarce resources to survive. It can also stem from a general perception of the world as a highly dangerous place with constant threats to our well-being. Digging even deeper, speciesism might result from a strong desire for societal order and support for hierarchy and authority that extends even beyond people and groups to animals. To examine the sociopolitical footprint of speciesism, we recruited 655 participants (66% women) aged 18-80 (M = 45.4, SD = 12.2). Alongside speciesism (α = .84), they filled in measures of Authoritarianism (α = .74), Social Dominance Orientation (α = .89), Competitive jungle (α = .86), and Dangerous world beliefs (α = .86), as well as two single-item measures of economic and social ideological self-placement. The results indicate that speciesism is related to higher SDO (r = .27), Authoritarianism (r = .18) and both social (r = .17) and economic (r = .12) right-wing ideology. Conversely, regarding worldview beliefs, speciesism was related only to the competitive jungle (r = .28) but not dangerous worldview beliefs. To examine the relative contribution of these predictors, we ran a hierarchical linear regression predicting speciesism. In the first step, authoritarianism, SDO, and ideology explained 8% of the variance (F(5, 650) = 15.56, p < .001), with SDO (ꞵ = .21, p < .001) and economic ideology (ꞵ = .09, p = .013) as significant predictors. Adding Competitive jungle and Dangerous world beliefs in the second step improved the predictive power of the model (ΔR2 = .05, ΔF(2,648) = 18.46, p < .001), with two worldview beliefs contributing in opposite directions. Individuals who endorsed competitive jungle beliefs were more likely to endorse speciesism (ꞵ = .22, p < .001), while those higher in dangerous world beliefs were less likely to endorse it (ꞵ = -.15, p < .001). Our results indicate that speciesism is rooted in support for societal hierarchy and that it can be viewed as a manifestation of naive social Darwinism.31. Međunarodni naučni skup Empirijska istraživanja u psihologiji 28–30. mart 2025; Filozofski fakultet, Univerzitet u Beogradu - Saopštenja štampana u izvod