Research Into the Violence Link:
 Notes for Humane Education

The link between cruelty to animals and violence toward people has been well established. Randall Lockwood and Frank Ascione's recent book, Cruelty to Animals and Interpersonal Violence: Readings in Research and Application compiles overwhelming research evidence that cruelty to animals is a symptom of deep psychological problems. It's a clear indicator that violence and abuse toward people is happening as well. In children and adolescents, a pattern of recurrent cruelty to animals is a predictor of later aggression toward other people.

So what does this have to do with humane education? Everything. The research supports the need for humane education and suggests what its content should be.

Support for Humane Education

Properly conceived and executed, humane education programs improve the treatment of both animals and people. Humane education not only provides knowledge about animals and their care but develops empathy, respect, sensitivity, responsibility, self control and self esteem. Including humane education as part of the regular school curriculum makes sure all children learn appropriate behaviours, not just those fortunate enough to come from stable, caring home environments.

The research is clear on the transference and escalation of aggression from animals to people. It also shows what causes that aggression -- and some of those causes can be prevented with humane education. Furthermore, there is research that shows that improved attitudes toward animals generalize to people. If children learn to treat animals well, they're more likely to treat people well too. If children are allowed to vent their aggression on animals, they will learn to vent it on other people as well.

Teaching Appropriate Behaviour

According to anthropologist Margaret Mead, human societies teach their children the difference between acceptable and unacceptable killing by teaching them acceptable behaviour toward animals. The larger and more anonymous a society, the more likely it is that children will not be taught the proper cues without an organized program. Thus she argues that appropriate behaviour toward animals be part of school curricula.

Other research points out that the way adolescents care for pets transfers to the way they will care for their children as adults. It's important that teens be taught appropriate coping mechanisms with companion animals because, for example, using physical punishment on pets could predispose them to do the same with their children. Interestingly, research also shows that adolescents have more intense relationships with their pets than do younger children.

Empathy and Communication

One of the causes of aggression toward both animals and people is inability on the part of the aggressor to read the signals being given off by the other party. He or she (usually he) reacts violently because he misinterprets the intentions of the other person or animal. An obvious topic for humane education is understanding animal behaviour and nonverbal communication.

Empathy, the ability to mentally put oneself in another's shoes and understand their perspective, is key to peaceful coexistence. Lack of empathy allows abuse to happen because to the unempathetic abuser, the victim is just an object, not a feeling being. Thus the development of empathy for others, human and nonhuman, must be an integral part of humane education.

Prejudice

Research shows that some kinds of animals are more likely to be abused than others. Stephen Kellert and Alan Felthous found that cats are more likely to be abused and in a greater variety of ways than other animals. They attribute this to individual and cultural prejudice against cats as well as their mysterious nature making them suitable for projection of unaccepable feelings.

Society ranks animals according to various criteria, and those considered less valuable, such as invertebrates, are more likely to suffer violence. Humane education then, must overcome prejudice with knowledge and promote the value of all creatures.

How Research Helps

Those of us involved in the field of humane education know instinctively that helping children to relate appropriately with animals is good for people as well as animals. We have no doubt of the value of humane education. Others do. But there is research to support us. Let's use it to promote humane education in our schools and to guide the content of our programs.

© 1999-2000 Elizabeth Gredley and animalINK
All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without written permission of the author. Permission is granted to reprint on a non profit web site provided this copyright notice and link to www.animalink.ab.ca remain intact.

This article first appeared in The Humane Educator,  a publication of the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies.