Aggression and empathy in animal abuse proclivity:

要旨

This Web-based survey examined whether aggression, empathy, background of abuse, and animal breeding experiences affected animal abuse proclivity (AAP). Participants (N = 354, 198 men and 156 women, mean age = 49.1 years, SD = 12.5) responded to the Animal Abuse Proclivity Scale (AAPS), the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire (BAQ), the Multidimensional Empathy Scale (MES), and two questionnaires assessing past abuse and animal breeding experiences. Their responses were analyzed by Bayesian Networks (BN) because the hypothetical model assumed direct and indirect dependencies in AAP, and relationships chained variables. BNs can automatically develop a model based on a dataset and conduct “sensitivity analysis” through the simulation of probabilistic reasoning. The model showed that (a) “anger” in aggression was directly related to the “thrill” in AAP, (b) “physical aggression” was directly related to “behavioral propensity”, and (c) gender could not act as a confounding factor between aggression and AAP. Moreover, sensitivity analysis indicated that anger among aggression enhanced thrill of AAP most strongly.

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