Non-human animals. Flashcards
(17 cards)
Introduction
-Even though psychology is primarily concerned with human behaviour, animals are often used in studies for a variety of reasons.
-Animal studies remain a contentious issue.
-Often animals will come to harm in studies. This harm may be physical, resulting in pain, suffering or even death for the animal. However not all suffering is physical, animals may be caused psychological pain.
-It is argued that animals can think, feel much in the same way as humans and causing them to suffer does mot justify the scientific findings that such animal studies gan give.
-As with the ethics of studies involving humans, we can weight out the cost vs benefits of research involving non human animals.
-Can question whether the application of findings from animals are useful enough to justify the harm they experience
Generic structure of answer
INTRO: Explain why animals are used and why there is an issue surrounding use of animals in psych research
MAIN BODY: 3 of the following - BPS guidelines, comparative and ethological psychology, use as a therapeutic device, speciesism.
CONC: can animals provide us with useful knowledge? are they protected?
What are the BPS guidelines for working with animals?
published in 1986
to ensure that suitable alternatives are made when possible, the number of animals used is the minimum and procedures are done to ensure minimal amount of suffering experienced. to reduce the ethical issues of animals in research and align with guidance in human research.
Example and counter and link : BPS
Example: Harlow used monkeys as monkeys are the closets evolutionary descendant to humans and so closest in behaviour to a human.
Counter: Dunayer(2002) compares use of animals to slavery- argues that just because something is legal it doesn’t mean it it is right. Kilkenny et al (2009)- rigor of animal studies doesn’t meet level of human studies because not human ps- often poorly designed studies- animals harmed for no / bad reason.
Link- Guidelines are not enough to protect animals in psych research-not stuck to and not enforced by law. boundaries are often pushed and animals treated poorly and people doing this do not get a severe punishment.
Comparative psychology with example
comparative psychology: studies that aim to use animals in order to make generalisations about humans.
Harlows monkeys- attachment research. baby conditions: wire mother providing food, cloth mother providing no food. when scares babies went to cloth mother and when hungry went to wire mother. spending more time with cloth mother and no time with wire mother.
Benefits and drawbacks of comparative psychology
+Lab setting=control (link to Harlow)
+animals easier to study(easier to manipulate and house)
+can conduct studies that would be unethical on humans
+can extrapolate from animals to humans (monkey-> human)
+could improve lives of monkeys in captivity
-not natural behaviour(often done in lab affecting validity)
-monkeys aren’t humans so can’t be sure you’d get the same results
-hard to identify animal emotions
-negative impact on monkey making it hard to socialise
Ethological psychology + study
-animals studied in their own environment, interested in animals behaviour in its own right and less interested in generalising to humans.
Lorenz- studies innate attachment (imprinting) in goslings. Hathed eggs in incubator rather than naturally meaning they saw Lorenz first and imprinted on him, he then became their “mother”.
Benefits and drawbacks of ethological psychology
+natural behaviour observed(minimal influence)
+less ethical issue and less chance of harm
+increased understanding of animal behaviour
-not meant to be applied to humans so what’s the point
-less control
-time consuming and expensive
mini conclusion for comparative and ethological psych
Ethological psychology could be considered kinder and more ethical for animals however less useful as findings cannot be applied to humans, whereas comparative psychology enables us to extrapolate results to understand human behaviour.
It is still important to use both as it is important for ethics when observing animals.
There is a place for responsible use of both as long as guidelines are not breached.
use of animals as a therapeutic device STRENGTH
Animal associated therapy(AAT) developed using animals as ‘behavioural facilitators’ because the presence of pets has been shown to reduce stress. useful for elderly, disturbed or socially isolated people. also for those with PTSD or anxiety.
Two psychologists 2009 reviewed 28 studies using AAT and found that all studies reported beneficial effects for emotional problems including sz, developmental disabilities and Down syndrome.
use of animals as a therapeutic device WEAKNESS
However other researchers have criticised such studies. Anestiset et al (2014) reviewed 14 studies of equine therapy and identified a number of methodological issues eg sample sizes being small and with no control group, individuals not randomly allocated to treatment groups.
The benefits could be due to having special attention rather than animal interaction per se.
AAT is new in regards to therapies, and more research is needed to be done, however it is good that the animals are treated well withn this.
speciesism definition
the practice of treating members of one species as morally more important than members of other species.
2 key arguments around speciesism
Utilitarian stance: what is right is whatever brings the greatest good to the greatest number. if research on a small group of animals has good benefits to nicety- it is justified.
Absolutist stance- No animal experiment is ever ethical, therefore no study on animals can be justified. all animal research is ethically wrong.
Can you use an animal study to demonstrate the differing views?
UTILITARIAN: Seligman learnt helplessness theory of depression, explaining why people become depressed. this theory was useful forbhumans and showed a great purpose therefore justified.
ABSOLUTIST: Unethical to admit electrical shocks on dogs who were conditioned to think they could not escape- it was wrong for it to be so extreme. Wrong for dogs to be put through harm and not reliable enough to apply yo humans= should do research on humans who have a say.
Speciesism with link to animal rights
‘animals have no responsibilities so don’t have rights’= so do children they have rights but not responsibilities
‘animals are sentient they think feel and have emotion’ others would argue that their sentience is not equal to humans.
mini conclusion for speciesism
If animals are used they should always be treated well. presence of animal activists are going to continue to make conducting research pn animals difficult eg PETA
Try to balance use of humans and animals in research in order to treat them in a more ethical way and avoid speciesism.
Overall conclusion
Using non human animals in psychology is stilll an issue today. Although there are guidelines when using animals in psych, they are not strict enough and speciesism is an issue inn how researchers treat animals. Regarding use of animals in psych, stricter guidelines should be enforced and checked, animals should only be used when absolutely essential for research.
