UC Davis

Antisocial personality is generally used to describe people who treat other people with callous disregard and disrespect. Although animal cruelty is diagnostic of conduct disorder, a precursor of antisocial personality in children, it is unclear whether the term antisocial also encompasses disregard and disrespect toward nonhuman animals among adults. In this study, we examined associations between three antianimal attitudes and behaviors-speciesism, hunting/fishing, and lack of sympathy for animal rights-and traits that underlie adult antisocial behavior. We found consistent links between antisocial personality traits and antianimal attitudes and behaviors in 2 samples. These effects were generally specific to traits linked to antisociality (although we also found associations with low openness), and these traits were stronger as predictors of variation among meat eaters than as predictors of differences between vegetarians and meat eaters. These results suggest that the term antisocial applies to negative attitudes and behaviors toward both humans and nonhuman animals and imply the potential value of considering antianimal attitudes and behaviors in the clinical assessment of antisocial personality. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).