EVALUATING THE MORALITY OF ANIMAL RESEARCH - EFFECTS OF ETHICAL IDEOLOGY, GENDER, AND PURPOSE

College students (N = 315) were asked to pretend that they were servin g on a university research committee hearing a complaint against anima l research being conducted by a member of the university faculty. Five different research scenarios were used: Testing cosmetics, basic theo ry testing, agricultural (meat production) research, veterinary resear ch, and medical research. Participants were asked to rate how justifie d they thought the research was and to decide whether or not the resea rch should be halted. An ethical inventory was used to measure partici pants' idealism and relativism. Idealism was negatively associated and relativism positively associated with support for animal research. Wo men were much less accepting of animal research than were men. Support for the cosmetic, theoretical, and agricultural research projects was significantly less than that for the medical research.