Development and Validation of a Scale of Attitudes Toward the Treatment of Animals

Abstract

A 30-item instrument was developed to measure attitudes toward the treatment of animals. Content reflected four major domains: companion animals, animals in agriculture, animals in research, and wild animals. Items followed a Likert-type format. Analysis of responses from 121 college students indicated acceptable reliability (.90). Differences between two groups exhibiting distinctly contrasting behavior toward animals and factor analytic results lent promising support to the construct validity of the scale.