Why we detach from other animals: Examining ingroup projection in human–animal relations

Abstract

Understanding our relation to animals is essential to tackle global challenges that arise out of the prioritization of human over nonhuman animal interests, like in the case of meat consumption. Meat is linked to ethically questionable animal agriculture practices, climate change, biodiversity loss, and pandemics. To understand the prioritization and legitimization of the human–animal relation, we utilized the ingroup projection model for human–animal relations. In a correlational study ( N 1 = 652) and an experiment ( N 2 = 309), we investigated ingroup projection—the process in which humans project “their” traits onto the superordinate category of the animal kingdom. Ingroup projection was associated with less speciesism and less meat consumption justification. Opposite to interhuman relations, for those high in supremacy beliefs, diversity perception was related to reduced ingroup projection. Experimental evidence for the effect of diversity perception was inconsistent. However, ingroup projection was associated with less legitimizing beliefs across both studies. Based on these findings, we introduce the (ingroup projection model for human–animal relations as a special case of the ingroup projection model, which bridges research on human–animal relations with dehumanization and anthropomorphization research. Our work provides a further step towards an interdependent understanding of our connectedness to and detachment from the animal kingdom.