How animals are used in education shapes public perceptions of their minds and moral concern for them

Aims: To examine how framing of an animal's use in educational teaching influences people’s perceptions of the animal's mind and the moral concern given to it.Methods: Members of the New Zealand and Australian public (n=439 after exclusions) were recruited through an online platform and randomly assigned to read one of three vignettes describing a rabbit: a naturalistic vignette depicting the rabbit in its wild habitat (control; n=146), an observational teaching vignette (n=147), or an intervention teaching vignette describing a surgical procedure (n=146). All three vignettes were portrayed as occurring within an established ethical framework. Participants rated their perceptions of the rabbit's mental capabilities (two dimensions of mind perception: affective sociality and cognitive autonomy) and their moral concern for the rabbit, each on a scale from 0–7.Results: There was no evidence that perceptions of the rabbit's affective sociality differed across vignettes: (ANOVA estimate of effect size (η²: a proportion ranging from 0 to 1) = 0.007, 90% CI = 0.000–0.022). Score for perceptions of its cognitive autonomy were slightly lower in the teaching vignettes than in the naturalistic vignette (naturalistic versus observational mean difference 0.45, 95% CI=0.06–0.84): a small effect (η²=0.019, 90% CI = 0.002–0.042). Contrary to a mind-denial prediction, moral concern score was higher in both teaching vignettes than in the naturalistic vignette (observational: 0.58 (95% CI = 0.29–0.88) points higher; intervention: 0.50 (95% CI = 0.20–0.79) points higher, statistically adjusting for mind perception). Moral concern was associated with perceptions of the rabbit's affective sociality (0.30 (95% CI = 0.21–0.38) points per scale point) but not its cognitive autonomy.Conclusions: Framing a rabbit's use within a teaching context did not produce the mind denial seen when people consider animals used for meat or testing; moral concern was not diminished and was higher than for a naturalistic portrayal. Moral concern was driven by perceptions of the animal's capacity for emotional experience, which teaching-use did not reduce, leaving little basis for the withdrawal of mind and moral concern that characterises moral disengagement. Because all scenarios were ethically framed, these effects cannot be attributed to the ethical framing itself.Clinical relevance: Among members of the New Zealand and Australian public, presenting an animal's use in education as ethically regulated was associated with greater, not lesser, moral concern for the animal. Whether this holds for veterinary students, and whether ethical framing is an operative factor, remains for future research.