Table 1.
Participant demographics as percentages by survey summary type.
Fig 1.
The presentation format of the animal purpose questionnaire (APQ) used to examine attitudes towards the use of rats, pigs, mice, fish and monkeys, for research into addiction, schizophrenia, obesity and cardiovascular disease, in three groups of participants.
The research purposes were always in the same fixed order for each question. The order of presentation of the questions by species was randomised.
Table 2.
The correlations between questionnaire measures of pro-welfare attitudes.
Fig 2.
(A) Mean APQ scores across the 5 species (pig, rat, mice, fish and monkey) by survey (no summary, lay summary, technical summary). A score of 3 represents a ‘neutral’ response, with a score higher than 3 representing disagreement with the use of the species and a score lower than 3 meaning some level of agreement with the use of the species in research. The majority of differences between species were significant; error bars show the estimated standard errors for approximate visual comparisons. (B) Mean APQ scores across the 5 species (pig, rat, mice, fish and monkey) by the 4 research purposes (addiction, schizophrenia, obesity and cardiovascular disease, CVD). A score of 3 represents a ‘neutral’ response, with a score higher than 3 representing disagreement with the use of the species and a score lower than 3 meaning some level of agreement with the use of the species in research. Bars are split into psychological (addiction and schizophrenia) and physical disorders (obesity and CVD). For the statistical analyses, obesity and addiction were coded controllable, and schizophrenia and CVD were coded as uncontrollable. The majority of differences between species were significant; error bars show the estimated standard errors for approximate visual comparisons. In the middle of the bars are the data labels showing the means to two decimal places.
Fig 3.
Mean APQ scores collapsed across species by the 4 research purposes (addiction, schizophrenia, obesity and cardiovascular disease, CVD) by survey (no summary, lay summary, technical summary), rescaled to show small differences.
A score of 3 represents a ‘neutral’ response, with a score higher than 3 representing disagreement with the use of the species and a score lower than 3 meaning some level of agreement with the use of the species in research. Bars are split into psychological (addiction and schizophrenia) and physical disorders (obesity and CVD). There was more disagreement with the use of animals for obesity than for CVD research. There was also generally more disagreement with the use of animals for addiction than for schizophrenia research, but this difference was not seen in the no summary group; error bars show the estimated standard errors for approximate visual comparisons. In the middle of the bars are the data labels showing the means to two decimal places.
Table 3.
Mean APQ item ratings by survey and demographic factors.