Dark minds dislike animals: The relationship between the Dark Tetrad and speciesism

Abstract

Speciesism designates a belief that humans should be treated as morally superior to other animals because they are different from all other animals. This belief entails disregarding non human animals' sentience and ability to suffer. Accordingly, in previous research, speciesism has been related to a more general lack of empathy and antisocial personality traits. In this study, we sought to investigate the relationship between the Dark Tetrad traits (Narcissism, Psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and Sadism) with different indicators of attitudes toward non human animals. We investigated this in a study with a community sample of adults (N = 369), in which participants indicated their attitude toward using animals in different industries, their frequency of meat consumption, and pro-social intentions toward animals. We constructed the path analysis where Dark Tetrad traits were set as the predictor variables while the attitudinal measures were set as the criteria. The model had high fit indices since all variables were modeled as observable: χ(5) = 6.262; p > .05; NFI = .981; CFI = .996; RMSEA = .026. Controlling for age, sex, and educational level, speciesism was related to psychopathy and sadism, with sadism as the most important predictor. Pro-social intentions toward animals were also negatively associated with psychopathy. Meat consumption was related to Machiavellianism, but this path was marginally significant. Narcissism was not related to any of the outcome measures. These findings suggest that the Dark Tetrad of personality has systematic ties to attitudes toward animals, especially psychopathy and sadism. This link is probably best explained through the insufficient capacity for empathy. These findings are also relevant to the literature on the link between violence toward animals and domestic and gender-based violence.