Measuring Wild Animal Welfare Attitudes: The Attitudes Towards Wild Animal Welfare Scale

Authors

  • Willem W. A. Sleegers Orcid
    Rethink Priorities, San Francisco, CA, USA
  • David Moss Orcid
    Rethink Priorities, San Francisco, CA, USA
  • William H. B. McAuliffe Orcid
    Rethink Priorities, San Francisco, CA, USA
  • David Reinstein Orcid
    Rethink Priorities, San Francisco, CA, USA; School of Business and Economics, Maastricht University, Maastricht, the Netherlands
  • Daniela R. Waldhorn Orcid
    Rethink Priorities, San Francisco, CA, USA

Abstract

Wild animals suffer from many naturally occurring harms such as starvation, diseases, and conflicts with other animals, yet little research has been conducted on how people view the natural suffering of wild animals. In this paper we introduce the Attitudes towards Wild Animal Welfare (AWAW) scale. The AWAW scale consists of four subscales: caring about wild animal welfare, support for intervening in nature, idyllic views of nature, and intervention ineffectiveness beliefs. Items were pretested and verified across four preregistered studies (N = 2866). The factors demonstrated good reliability and strongly correlated with related measures, including general animal attitudes, speciesism, and support for specific wild animal welfare interventions. The idyllic view factor showed weaker correlations with other measures but was retained due to its theoretical significance. All four factors predicted a decision to give a bonus payment to a wild animal charity. Our aim is that the scale will facilitate further psychological research on wild animal welfare and, in turn, inform interventions and policies aimed at reducing the suffering of wild animals.