Speciesism Scale

The Speciesism Scale is a 6-item measure of speciesism—the assignment of different inherent moral status based solely on an individual’s species membership.

Items

  1. Morally, animals always count for less than humans.
  2. Humans have the right to use animals however they want to.
  3. It is morally acceptable to keep animals in circuses for human entertainment.
  4. It is morally acceptable to trade animals like possessions.
  5. Chimpanzees should have basic legal rights such as a right to life or a prohibition of torture.
  6. It is morally acceptable to perform medical experiments on animals that we would not perform on any human.

Response options

  • Strongly disagree
  • Disagree
  • Somewhat disagree
  • Neither agree nor disagree
  • Somewhat agree
  • Agree
  • Strongly agree
Note

The original paper only reports the labels for the end points of the scale (‘Strongly disagree’ and ‘Strongly agree’), not the options in between.

Download

Reference

Caviola, L., Everett, J. A. C., & Faber, N. S. (2019). The moral standing of animals: Towards a psychology of speciesism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 116(6), 1011–1029. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000182