{"id":780188,"date":"2025-12-30T10:01:36","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T15:01:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=780188"},"modified":"2025-12-30T11:01:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T16:01:19","slug":"inhuman-bondage-new-book-examines-paradoxical-human-animal-relationships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=780188","title":{"rendered":"IN-HUMAN BONDAGE: New book examines paradoxical human-animal relationships"},"content":{"rendered":"

PSYCHOLOGY TODAY:<\/strong> There is an ever-growing multidisciplinary interest in the nature of human-animal relationships… Professor Laurent B\u00e8gue-Shankland’s new award-winning book: ‘The Social Psychology of the Human-Animal Bond’, winner of the 2024 Prix \u00c9mile Girardeau, examines humans’ dominance of and affection for animals. It analyzes paradoxical human behavior toward animals and how empathy toward animals can be manipulated. The author explores how our personalities and political beliefs shape the way we relate to animals…<\/em><\/p>\n

Marc Bekoff (MB): Why did you write The Social Psychology of the Human-Animal Bond?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Laurent B\u00e8gue-Shankland (LBS):<\/strong> My aim was to create a broad overview of our multiple connections to animals from a social psychological perspective. Animals have shaped our beliefs for as long as we\u2019ve existed. They appear in our religions, our myths, and even shared our graves. We\u2019ve relied on their strength, turned them into symbols, and shifted their place in our cultures again and again\u2014sometimes putting them on pedestals, sometimes on our plates.<\/em><\/p>\n

Take cats, for example. In ancient Egypt, they were literally worshipped as the goddess Bastet. Centuries later, in medieval France, people were burning them at summer festivals, and cat pelts were still being traded up through the 19th century. And it wasn\u2019t until 2020 that China officially removed cats from its list of animals considered edible…<\/em><\/p>\n

Our relationships with them can act like a mirror, revealing how we think about people who are different from us and how we understand \u201cotherness.\u201d And when it comes to how we treat animals, we often tie ourselves in knots, trying to balance our emotional attachment to these creatures\u2014with whom we’ve evolved side by side\u2014with our desire to use them however we please…<\/em><\/p>\n

MB: What are some of the topics you consider, and what are some of your major messages?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

LBS:<\/strong> In the book, I write about a large study we ran in my lab that was basically a twist on the classic Milgram obedience experiments\u2014except this time the \u201cvictim\u201d was an animal. Even though science has long debunked the idea that animals are little emotionless machines, labs still tend to treat them like disposable tools. More than 115 million animals are killed every year for research, and that puts huge emotional pressure on the people who have to carry out painful or invasive procedures… They watched the \u201cfish\u201d doing a task, and were told the drug would help it learn. Under the buttons, the supposed chance of killing the fish was clearly written… And, just like in Milgram\u2019s original studies, a lot of people pushed through to the end, which meant certain death for the fish. Among those who killed the fish, there were more males, and individuals with lower empathy and a higher score on a speciesism scale developed by Lucius Caviola at Oxford University…<\/em><\/p>\n

MB: Are you hopeful that as people learn more about the nature of human-animal bonds they will come to appreciate how important they are for both humans and nonhumans?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

LBS:<\/strong> I hope that the awareness of our invaluable bond may motivate some change in dealing with animals. Of course, no one can predict what our relations with animals will be like in the future. All we know is that some species will be absent. Between 1970 and 2016, populations of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and fish decreased by 68 percent, and we are the ones to blame… In the face of these frightening signs, will we understand that we are now deep in the coal mine with the canary, breathing the same air? MARC BEKOFF<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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