Running head: USE OF ANIMALS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 1

Use of Animals in Psychological Research

Jackie Day

Loras College
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When thinking about psychological research, human participants are often what is

conjured up in the mind. Yet, this only covers one pool of “participants”, the others being

animals. Animals have proved just as integral as humans themselves when it comes to research

in the field of psychology and, therefore, should be afforded the same rights and protections

when being used for the purpose of a study.

Animals have been used in many capacities in psychological research since as early as

the 19th century (Miller, 1985). One of the most well-known historical examples of this was

research done in the early 20th century by Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov and his students,

involving dogs and a form of learning that came to be known as classical conditioning. Pavlov

took note of the fact that the dogs salivated, an unconditioned response, in the presence of food

or when they knew food was coming, an unconditioned stimulus. He took this observation

further by applying a conditioned stimulus along with the food by ringing a bell whenever food

was to be presented to the dogs and, eventually, found he could produce the unconditioned

response of salivation in the dogs with only the conditioned stimulus of simply ringing the bell.

Food did not have to be present for the dogs to salivate because they had learned and been

conditioned to think of the bell as being associated with food (Miller, 1985). Classical

conditioning such as this has since been vital in the study of learning in humans and animals

alike. Another quite famous example of historical animal research in psychology was done by

American psychologist B. F. Skinner. His experimentation with rats and other animals in

something that has come to be known as the Skinner box was vital in researching another form

of learning referred to as operant conditioning. Skinner would confine animals, primarily rats, to

a box with a lever inside that, when activated, would allow access to food. Through this method,

Skinner was able to observe how animals learn to interact with the environment around them
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when reinforcing techniques like food are involved (Grison, Heatherton, & Gazzaniga, 2015).

This research, as well as the work of many others, did contribute to the body of knowledge in the

field of psychology, but not without some unethical treatment of animals along the way. This

same type of situation has occurred in human research as well with Stanley Milgram’s studies on

obedience (Grison et al., 2015). Just because the experiment was conducted in the first place and

important information about human behavior was observed and collected does not necessarily

excuse the lack of ethics involved in doing so. Since the time of Pavlov and Skinner, the

American Psychological Association (APA) has added some guidelines to their code of ethics

relating to the use of animals in research. However, we still afford humans much more in the

way of protection in research than we do animals. Considering the fact that animals have no

ability to consent to research at the hands of humans, it seems as if we should be protecting

animals more than humans themselves. In fact, the use of animals in psychological research

should be treated exactly the same as human participation with the code of ethics governing their

use being even stricter than at current.

Animals, as beings on this planet just like us, should be given the same rights as humans

when being used in research. A survey conducted with 3,982 members of the American

Psychological Association reported that a majority support the use of animals for learning

purposes but are actually against causing pain or death, as well as having any sort of requirement

for psychology students to work with animals in an experimental capacity (Plous, 1996). This

data illustrates that even those deeply involved in the field of psychology do not favor the

irresponsible or cruel use of animals in psychological research. We have humans participate in

research so that we may observe new things or add to the existing body of knowledge and

animals can serve that same purpose, but then this means that it is only right to give them the
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same rights that are allotted to human participants. Animals present the same possibility for

knowledge gain as humans do and if they are equal in that capacity, then they should be equal

across the board. Many of those surveyed also supported federal protections for animals such as

mice that are not currently offered the same protection as animals like cats and dogs (Plous,

1996). The fact that some animals are thought of as below others in the grand scheme of things

and, therefore, not worthy of the same protections begs the question of what criteria we are using

to determine this. We treat animals as different in the realm of research, for one, because of their

perceived level of intelligence, knowledge we have obtained through a field of study come to be

known as animal psychology (Stam & Kalmanovitch, 1998). Human intelligence is thought of,

for the most part, as being superior to animal intelligence, even in the case of monkeys who are

quite responsive to their surrounding environment and share almost all of the same DNA as us

humans. In fact, during the same time that this realm of animal psychology began to be studied

in history, a psychologist named E. L. Thorndike was engaging in research that would change the

manner in which the field of psychology thought of animals and the relationship between the

two. The ultimate outcome of this research was the rejection, perhaps stronger in Thorndike’s

mind than some others, of “anthropomorphism”, which is the assigning of human characteristics

to animals or objects (Stam & Kalmanovitch, 1998). Animals became more similar to objects

that could be used rather than living beings with thoughts and feelings in the minds of many

researchers. In connection with the criteria of intelligence, animals are also judged on their

ability to adapt, where humans have an unfair advantage if research is being done in a laboratory

setting, a place familiar to them and foreign or even frightening to an animal. These aspects

should not be the deciding factors, or at least the only ones, in determining if beings deserve

protection from harm in the pursuit of knowledge and new technologies. Yet, in general, this has
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not been the primary concern for humans, evidenced by the fact that comparative research in this

area has not been near thorough enough to create an accurate hierarchy of what we think of as

intelligence (Stam & Kalmanovitch, 1998). Many animals also experience pain and distress

much like humans do and do not always possess the ability to vocalize it in a way that will be

easily understood, something that should also be taken into consideration. The APA survey also

found support on this point with a majority stating there should be mandatory pain assessments

for animals being used in psychological experiments (Plous, 1996).

Another significant factor to consider that goes hand in hand with this problem of

communication is that, at the end of the day, animals are living beings just the same as us and the

question remains of why we should get the right to decide to use them in research when they

cannot verbally consent like we can. If a being we are using for the purpose of research has less

or no ability to consent to what is being done, we should, logically, be offering them more

protections than human participants, not less. In the code of ethics, section 3.10 deals with

informed consent in human research, stating that psychologists must obtain consent from

participants using language that is easily understood so that the participant knows exactly what

will happen before the study commences (American Psychological Association, 2002). It is

essential to any research that this consent be obtained before an experiment begins, but none of

the animals used get this right, or other rights for that matter. Section 8.09 of the APA’s Code of

Ethics, “Humane Care and Use of Animals in Research”, is the only part of the code primarily

dealing with the use of animals in psychological research (American Psychological Association,

2002). Psychologists are to respect and follow the regulations when it comes to obtaining the

animals, caring for them, including having the proper supervision, and using them in research.

However, they are also to “dispose” of the animals according to these regulations, which is not
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language we use when referring to humans in research. We also do not apply the word “use” to

humans as we do in this section, instead we opt for more respectful sounding words like

“participate”. This language is most likely due to the fact that animals physically cannot

“participate” if they cannot consent in the first place, they really are being used. This is

troublesome as it shows that we do not think of animals to even be on the same tier of being as

ourselves and, therefore, not deserving of the same level of respect in even something as simple

as language. Another distinction between this part of the code and the other parts dealing with

human participants is that psychologists are to try and minimize harm when it comes to animals

while one of the main considerations in human research and even therapy is avoiding harm and,

in fact, to stick to the general and overarching principle of beneficence. This section of the code

says that psychologists are to “strive to benefit” those they work with and “take care to do no

harm”, but this apparently only applies if the subjects in question are of the same species

(American Psychological Association, 2002). Animals are excluded from this as psychologists

may still knowingly cause harm, or even death in some cases, so long as they can foresee it and

minimize it in an appropriate manner. Section 8.09 deems permissible the use of painful,

stressful, and surgical procedures on animals so long as the end scientific goal justifies the

means, but it is humans deciding what goals justify these procedures so bias could present itself

when the decision is made (American Psychological Association, 2002). If the research benefits

humans in particular, there may be a tendency to lean towards going through with the research

since it is the livelihood of members of another species at stake. Granted, many experiments

done in psychology do not cause any sort of harm to animals, but this does not mean that they

should be any less protected than humans when it comes to that point.
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Oftentimes, the contributions of animals in psychological research are not even acknowledged in

full (Domjan & Purdy, 1995). We should not be able to use animals to the extent that we do

without giving them certain rights, one of those being the right to be acknowledged as integral to

certain research if they have been a part of it. Some animals lose their life for the purpose of

research, and the code of ethics permits this to an extent by providing a guideline for the

termination of life, so the best thing we can do to honor and respect animals’ contribution is to

share what we have learned even if the experiment was not a complete success or did not

accomplish all the researchers set out to. Many psychology students are misled as to the number

of animals actually used in research and sometimes in studies, the participants are referred to as

if they are human when, in fact, they are animals (Gosling, 1996). Many psychology textbooks

neglect to outwardly express that much of the knowledge contained within them relating to the

human brain, behaviors, etc. has only been obtained in the detail we see because of animal

studies (Domjan & Purdy, 1995). Information relating to, for example, different parts of the brain

and how brain damage may affect behavior would not be available to the extent that it is today

without animal research. In a study of eight different introductory psychology textbooks, it was

found that the only explicit and recurring mention of the contributions of animals was in the

sections on learning and conditioning, as have been already been discussed (Domjan & Purdy,

1995). There were exceptions amongst all of the textbooks, of course, but the overall trend was

not explicitly discussing the integral role of animals in the information presented. The result of

this is that we may take for granted the fact that we only have access to some of this information

because animals gave their well-being or even their lives to obtain it. Primates, in particular, are

often used more than is actually recorded because they can be part of multiple experiments over

a longer course of time as opposed to smaller, simpler

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animals like rodents (Gallup & Suarez, 1985). E. L. Thorndike preferred using primates for this

very reason; animals such as rats were just too fragile and short-term for some in-depth research

(Stam & Kalmanovitch, 1998). The fault of some introductory psychology textbooks is also that,

in the little that they do mention animal research, they tend not to disclose much about the harm

done to animals in the laboratory, even if this information is necessary to know for the

experiment. There is much more focus placed on the positive. This fault can show up in

seemingly small ways, the description of the later use of the Skinner box, for example. One such

textbook, in the section on operant conditioning, emphasizes the specific positive reinforcements

used such as food several times, but only briefly mentions the punishment side of things in the

text itself (Grison et al., 2015). Electric shocks are used on the mice in the experiment to see if

they will learn to perform a certain task to stop the shocks from occurring. A small, animated

diagram at the bottom of one of the pages refers to the electric shocks that mice received but it is

not brought to the student’s attention like the positive aspects are, and also is not brought up in

detail in the actual text. It seems to be a minor detail until one considers the reality of being

exposed to electricity in that manner. This would be, and has been, a much different situation

when humans were involved. Domjan and Purdy, in their study “Animal research in psychology:

More than meets of the eye of the general psychology student”, point out an extremely important

consequence of this censorship or complete omission of animal contribution in the field of

psychology (Domjan & Purdy, 1995). The consequence is that this omission results in a missed

opportunity to make sure that policies having to do with the use of animals in psychological

research are properly put together and carried out. If this type of information is not made public

and easily accessible, this is much more difficult to do.

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Opponents to further restriction of the use of animals in research would argue that psychological

research involving animals does help animals too. A clear example of this is research done in

order to discover something termed the “Garcia effect” which is the discovery that taste aversion

techniques can be used to prevent animals from getting into areas they are not supposed to be or

eating certain crops, preventing humans from having to kill them as the alternative (Miller,

1985). Behavioral research involving animals has also been able to assist us in our efforts to

ensure that endangered species do not become more endangered. We were able to discover the

concept of imprinting in order to help species, such as the condor, thrive without adults present

to care for them, yet still allow them to develop as they normally would (Miller, 1985). These

efforts are all well and good but it must also be pointed out that the few areas where we see

benefits for animals resulting from animal research are areas where humans are really part of the

problem in the first place. We discovered taste aversion techniques so that we humans would not

have to resort to killing animals as, as we see it, the only other alternative. We have discovered

the concept of imprinting to help endangered species that surely we contributed to the dying off

of. Animals, on the other hand, have been exploited to help us with almost every realm of

psychology, even in areas where human participants could have easily been used instead. As has

been shown with what now seems to be the most basic of knowledge presented in our

psychology textbooks, the research we do often benefits mostly, if not only, humans. We are

exploiting living beings and our natural environment for our own benefit. There are countless

areas where animal research has been the main method to study some concept or function that

has benefitted or applied primarily to humans.

Another reason one may oppose restricting the use of animals in psychological research

is because individuals who are against it often refer to biomedical research as their evidence,
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something that is seen as much more cruel and invasive than psychological research (Miller,

1985). Many of the pictures we see that illustrate cruel and unusual situations animals such as

monkeys or rabbits are put into in laboratory settings have more to do with the biomedical field

of study and are not even related to the research that psychologists are engaging in. Yet, there is

still some questionable treatment involved in psychological research as well. One truly awful

historical example of this is Harlow and his experiment with an infant monkey, something we

never would have been able to recreate with a human child, even before many APA standards

were in place (Siegfried, 2002). Essentially, Harlow wanted to know about attachment patterns

and whether the monkey would trade the comfort of a mother, even one made from just a cloth,

for food. This was a cruel experiment because the infant was separated from its mother at an

extremely young age which is a quite traumatic experience and something we would never be

able to do, nor think of doing, to a human child. Even more disheartening is the fact that the

infant monkey actually chose to be in the comfort of the cloth mother as often as possible and

only left for a very brief amount of time to eat, going straight back to the cloth mother when it

was done (Siegfried, 2002). This clearly illustrates the fact that monkeys, and even other animals

to some extent, are not so different from us. Maybe even more than expected at the beginning of

the experiment, we found that monkeys do crave affection just as we do and need their mother

figure when they are young and vulnerable. As mentioned before, monkeys also share much of

the same DNA with humans so the question arises as to why it is deemed permissible to inflict

permanent results of trauma on an infant primate, but not a human child. There are multiple

alternatives available for use that should be exhausted before even considering using animals in

psychological research, including experiments that are expected to cause trauma such as

Harlow’s (Gallup & Suarez, 1985). Some of these alternative measures include naturalistic
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observation, which could actually be more beneficial in some cases than putting animals in a

foreign laboratory setting. We may learn more just watching them behave and interact in their

natural environment, which poses virtually no harm to them at all. We employ this same sort of

method with humans too because we simply could not observe their honest behaviors unless they

are in a natural environment and state of mind. The other reason this method may be utilized is

that some concepts we just could not ethically study and manipulate in a lab setting, which is

why this should also be the case for animals. There is less control in a naturalistic setting but not

much can be done about the nature of this and observations in the psychological field of study.

Another alternative to excessive use of animals in research is case studies that can then lead to

more focused research later on, rather than wasting the lives of a great number of animals when

the method has not yet been perfected (Gallup & Suarez, 1985). Case studies do not have the

same potential to apply to the general population but, in this case, that would not be the main

goal. The objective would be to spare the lives of many innocent animals by obtaining a greater

amount of knowledge and creating a more centered focus before doing trials with a greater

number of animals.

Animals can be used in research in an ethical manner and can be extremely useful and

even vital to our body of knowledge in psychology, but the code of ethics governing their use

should be stricter and more detailed than it currently is. The guidelines stating that animals

should be used in a frugal manner in research and protected from unnecessary amounts of pain

should be taken more seriously by researchers and review boards alike and even expanded upon

to more closely match the code of ethics in place for human participation. There are too many

similarities between animals and humans and not enough in-depth research saying otherwise for

us to only allot animals one section in our ethical code. We have bestowed upon ourselves the
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right to exploit other living beings with just as much right to live on this planet as us. Animals

deserve the same rights as humans when being used in research, especially given the fact that

they cannot verbally consent. We should aim to be professional in our pursuit of knowledge and

protect those who do not have a voice like we do. This means that we should follow the same

guidelines that tell us we should aim not to do any harm to humans when dealing with animals.
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References

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