The Social Psychology of the Human-Animal Bond

Winner of the 2024 Prix Emile Girardeau prize, rewarding exceptional work in the economic or sociological sciences, this book examines afresh our relationships of dominance with and affection for animals. It reviews how animals played a pivotal role in ancient civilizations, and still play a fundamental part in human lives, and looks at how many humans feel deep affection and other strong emotions towards animals. This book offers an understanding of human relationships with animals, providing an analysis of paradoxical human behaviour towards animals and a look at how empathy toward animals can be manipulated. Most notably, this book offers an in-depth look at Bègue-Shankland's adaptation of the famous Stanley Milgram’s experiment on submission to authority (this time, ordinary men and women are led to harm what they believe to be a lab animal (actually a robot) for the sake of science) to shed new light on what influences our behaviour and empathy towards animals. This book shows how much our relations with animals – from attachment to abuse – reveal our identity and our relations with others. It will provide a valuable resource not only to students and researchers studying human-animal relations, zoology, and human psychology, but also to a general reader interested in animal advocacy.