Intentional Harm to Animals: A Multidimensional Approach

ABSTRACT

Despite growing awareness of the social and psychological issues linked with animal abuse, there is a lack of large‐scale research on the multidimensional factors at play in relation to such abuse in the adult population. In this first survey on animal abuse carried out in higher education in France and based on a highly powered sample (N = 55,040 participants), we investigated the relative weight of risk factors pertaining to major criminological dimensions in a multivariate model controlling for relevant demographics: General Strain Theory (GST), Social Bond Theory (SBT), and Generalized Deviance Theory (GDT), as well as three key psychological dimensions: Callousness, Sensation seeking, and Impulse control difficulties. We observed that 6.4% of the participants declared having perpetrated animal abuse in the past, with males having done so about three times more often than females. Animal abuse was linked with callousness, difficulties in impulse control and sensation seeking. Participants who reported a climate of violence in their family, or who had witnessed acts of violence by their father against their mother, were particularly prone to abuse animals, which supported GST predictions. To a lesser extent, in line with SBT, animal abuse was higher among students with lower attachment to their mother, and who had a weaker belief in justice. Finally, animal abuse was perpetrated significantly more often by participants reporting higher alcohol consumption, as predicted by GDT. In summary, animal harm is related to a combination of risk factors pertaining to major criminological and psychological perspectives on aggression and violence, knowledge of which is useful in prioritizing future research directions and prevention strategies.

1. Introduction

Animal abuse is defined as a “socially unacceptable behavior that intentionally causes unnecessary pain, suffering, or distress to/or death of an animal” (Ascione 1993, 228). Because of its obvious implications for animal welfare as well as its significant connection with human mental health and interpersonal violence (Chan and Wong 2019; Cleary et al. 2021; Longobardi and Badenes‐Ribera 2018; Monsalve et al. 2017; Mota‐Rojas et al. 2022; Vähä‐Aho and Kaakinen 2024), animal abuse has attracted research attention from scholars working in various fields, including psychiatry and psychology (Bright et al. 2018; Chan and Wong 2024; Gullone 2012; Henry 2018; Holoyda and Newman 2016; Muri et al. 2022; Rock et al. 2021), criminology (Agnew 1998; Arluke et al. 2018; Chan and Wong 2024; Taylor and Fitzgerald 2018), social work (Hartman et al. 2019), forensic research (Ascione et al. 2018; Johnson 2018), and veterinary science (Monsalve et al. 2017).

While the social and psychological correlates of animal abuse have stimulated countless research papers, many first generation studies were limited to clinical samples. This focus on the pathological profiles of offenders was notably illustrated through the pioneering study by MacDonald (1961), who reviewed the childhood characteristics of psychotic and nonpsychotic inpatients who had threatened to commit homicide, and discovered that they had frequently perpetrated acts of cruelty to animals (see Parfitt and Alleyne 2020). Since the 1987 American Psychiatric Association Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel of Mental Disorders (DSM IIIR), physical cruelty toward animals has been included on the list of criterion symptoms for the diagnosis of Conduct Disorder (see Louise Petersen and Farrington 2007), and also appears as a criterion on the Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach and Ruffle 2000). This introduction into a reference diagnostic tool may have contributed to promoting a focus on cruelty toward animals among clinicians. However, comparison samples were not always included in studies, and further research on nonclinical populations remains necessary. So far, most of the available literature has focused on children and adolescent perpetrators, an emphasis which may have inadvertently stunted progress toward understanding adult‐perpetrated animal abuse (Alleyne and Parfitt 2019). In addition, to further understand the specific weight of the multiple identifiable factors involved in animal abuse, there is a need for studies based on large sample enabling multivariate analysis and including a wide range of variables (Vaughn et al. 2009). To fill these gaps, the current study targeted a national nonclinical adult sample in higher education, and included an extended range of key measures pertaining to major criminological approaches.

1.1. Aim of the Study

The principal aim of this study was to assess the relative explanatory power of key predictors of animal abuse in a single analytic model using a large national university sample. Most prior studies have only included a few variables, and a limited sample size often prevents firm conclusions from being reached regarding the hierarchy of the variables introduced in a multidimensional model. To select and structure our predictors, we relied on two dominant criminological perspectives on delinquency (Akers and Sellers 2017; Bègue 2003, 2018; Cullen et al. 2006): General Strain Theory (Agnew 2001) and Social Bond Theory (Hirschi 2001). In addition to the perspective offered by Generalized Deviance Theory (GDT), they are relevant to understanding animal abuse (Agnew 1998).

A final category of predictors comprised the psychological factors involved in the self‐regulation of behavior (sensation seeking and self‐control; see Gottfredson and Hirschi 1990) and interpersonal sensitivity (callousness), which are particularly important in explaining aggression and delinquency and are critically involved in externalizing behavior and animal abuse (Alleyne and Parfitt 2019; Amiot and Bastian 2015; Levitt 2018; Louise Petersen and Farrington 2007).

1.2. Animal Abuse and Strain

According to the General Strain Theory (GST, Agnew 1992, 2001), individuals facing certain sources of strain and stress sometimes try to cope by engaging in criminal behavior. GST identifies three main categories of criminogenic strain: the failure to achieve a desired goal, the removal of positive stimuli (i.e., losing something good), and exposure to negative or aversive stimuli (see Brezina 1996; Hoffmann and Cerbone 1999). When animals destroy property, cause injury, or interfere in some way with a person's valued goals, they can represent a source of strain (Kellert and Felthous 1985). For example, some frustrated individuals displace their aggression and address it toward an animal, which is generally weaker than another human and less likely to retaliate (Wright and Hensley 2003). Moreover, even chronic strain experienced by individuals, which has not been caused by the animal themselves, may lead to their abuse. Adolescents and young adults sometimes face stress within the educational system (e.g., negative school experiences, or unjust treatment by authorities), which may lead to delinquency and violence. Previous studies have linked animal abuse to traditional bullying, and also to cyberbulling (Baldry 2003; Bègue 2022; Gullone and Robertson 2008; Sanders and Henry 2017; Parkes and Signal 2017; Vähä‐Aho and Kaakinen 2024).

Another source of strain is exposure to parental violence or child abuse, which are significant risk factors for engaging in animal abuse (DeGue and Dilillo 2009; Flynn 2012; Volant et al. 2008). Becker et al. (2004) noted that negative family variables (such as marital violence and harsh parenting) increased the likelihood of childhood animal cruelty. In a national, longitudinal, and multigenerational study based on a sample of 1614 individuals collected by the National Youth Survey Family Study from 1990 to 2004, it was shown that parents' intimate partner violence was predictive of their children's history of animal abuse, as measured 14 years later (Knight et al. 2014).

Compared to the general population, the rate of animal cruelty is higher in families in which child abuse or neglect has taken place (it occurs in 60% of these families, as indicated by DeViney et al. 1983). Other studies have shown that 50% of young people who witnessed parental domestic abuse engaged in animal cruelty (Baldry 2003), and that children exposed to domestic abuse are three times more likely to be cruel to animals (Currie 2006; see also DeGue and Dilillo 2009), rising to six times more likely if they have been sexually abused (Ascione and Arkow 1999). Moreover, children who are cruel to animals are more likely to have been maltreated by family members than other children (McEwen et al. 2014). According to a systematic review, the prevalence of animal abuse in households with intimate partner violence ranges from 21% to 89% (Cleary et al. 2021).

Finally, a common source of strain in Agnew's model is financial frustration. In some studies, strain, which is potentially related to a lower socioeconomic background (Vaughn et al. 2009) or lack of economic resources and poverty, increases the chance of animal abuse (Levinthal 2010; however, see also Bègue 2022, who observed no relationship between perceived family affluence and animal cruelty in adolescents).

1.3. Social Bonding Factors

Social bond theory is a major criminological approach explaining animal abuse (Agnew 1998). According to this perspective, individuals conform to conventional (nondelinquent) norms to the extent that they are attached to others who accept the legitimacy of such norms. Conversely, they deviate from conventional norms when they lack such attachments (Hirschi 2001; Stark and Bainbridge 1996). Attachment is a key component of social bond theory. It describes the psychological and emotional connection a person feels toward other people or groups, and the extent to which they care about others' opinions and feelings. Animal abuse has been reported to be more frequent among adolescents who have a weaker bond with their parents (Alleyne and Parfitt 2019; Bègue 2022) and with school (Bègue 2022; Mowen and Boman 2020), or who come from “non loving homes” (Fielding et al. 2011). Likewise, children who are referred to an intervention for harming animal(s) are more likely to display insecure attachment (Wauthier and Williams 2022a; see also Wauthier et al. 2023).

A belief in justice also represents a relevant symbolic determinant of commitment toward conventional (i.e., nondelinquent) modes of conduct. According to experimental and survey studies, a person's belief that the world is a fundamental motive (Lerner 1980; Hafer and Bègue 2005) that contributes to their commitment to long‐term goals and is inversely related to aggressive cognitions and behaviors and delinquent conduct (Bègue and Muller 2006; Hafer 2000; Hafer et al. 2005; Kong et al. 2021).

1.4. General Deviance Theory

According to the GDT, “a wide range of criminal behaviors are positively correlated with one another either because one form of deviant behavior leads to involvement in other forms of deviance or because different forms of deviance have the same underlying causes” (Arluke et al. 1999, 965). From that perspective, animal cruelty is a single marker of a more general propensity toward deviance, and is also a symptom of a host of maladaptive behaviors (Louise Petersen and Farrington 2007). Cruelty toward animals has been associated with many psychiatric comorbidities (Vaughn et al. 2009), as well as with alcohol and drug use (Bègue 2022; Knight et al. 2014; Mowen and Boman 2020; Vaughn et al. 2009). For example, in a prospective, longitudinal study of about 4300 youths, four out of five animal abusers reported drinking alcohol weekly (McVie 2007). In another study examining 456 arrests of authors of the sexual mistreatment of animals, 19% of the offenders had alcohol or drug abuse issues (Edwards 2019). In a sample of more than 43,000 participants in a nationally representative survey, Vaughn et al. (2009) observed that alcohol use disorder was the most common psychiatric disorder related to a history of animal cruelty (Vaughn et al. 2009). Other studies have offered similar observations (Finkelhor et al. 2007; Ford et al. 2021; Gleyzer et al. 2002; Levitt et al. 2016; Mowen and Boman 2020; Simmons et al. 2015; Van Wijk et al. 2018). Likewise, studies have reported a relationship between animal cruelty and cannabis use (Simmons et al. 2015) and between animal cruelty and substance abuse (Levitt 2024).

According to an alternative theory of deviance at variance with GDT, animal abuse in an individual's formative years progresses developmentally, desensitizes children, and escalates into subsequent violence. This graduation theory is supported in the literature on serial killers and school shooters (Wright and Hensley 2003), and by some studies on prisoners (Hensley and Tallichet 2009). However, some critics have noted that the evidence of the hypothesized progression is inconsistent (Gullone 2014). GDT seems more parsimonious and is more relevant here than graduation theory, given the cross‐sectional design of our study. Regarding specific markers of deviance, the current study focuses on alcohol and cannabis consumption.

1.5. Psychological Dimensions

1.5.1. Callous‐Unemotional Traits (CU)

Empathy in children and adults is frequently observed to be negatively related to mistreatment of, and violence toward, animals (Gullone 2012; McPhedran 2009; Plant et al. 2019; Poresky 1990; Stanger et al. 2012; Vidović et al. 1999). This is similarly the case for callousness‐unemotional traits, with the relationship running in the opposite direction to empathy (Dadds et al. 2006; Gupta 2019; Hartman et al. 2019; Stupperich and Strack 2016; Walters 2014; Hawkins et al. 2017). For exemple, one study involving 290 children aged 7–12 found that about 16% had hurt an animal, and that callousness‐unemotional traits predicted this behavior (Hartman et al. 2019). Studies enabling the concurrent analysis of empathy and CU concluded that the link between CU and cruelty toward animals was stronger than the link relating empathy measures to cruelty (Hartman et al. 2019; Kotler and McMahon 2005). This reflects results obtained on violence toward humans in both youth (Ritchie et al. 2022) and adult samples (Vachon et al. 2014).

1.5.2. Sensation Seeking

Some people engage in acts of animal cruelty merely in pursuit of excitement (Arluke 2002; Hensley and Tallichet 2000). Sensation seeking is a personality drive to seek out novel or exciting behaviors which has been linked to adolescent risk taking, including aggressive and violent behavior (Joireman et al. 2003). A meta‐analysis involving 43 independent studies (comprising a total of 32,217 participants) provided support for higher levels of aggression in high sensation seekers (Wilson and Scarpa 2011). This includes animal abuse (Mowen and Boman 2020; Patterson‐Kane 2012) which is perpetrated for thrill‐seeking purposes. A study using the Animal Abuse Proclivity Scale (Alleyne et al. 2015) showed that participants who were thrilled when thinking about animal abuse were less bothered by causing intentional harm to animals (Zalaf 2024).

1.5.3. Emotion Regulation

Emotion regulation is the ability to engage in goal‐directed behavior and refrain from impulsive behavior when experiencing negative emotions. Maladaptive emotion regulation and experiencing difficulty in exercising self‐restraint is a recurrent risk factor for aggression (Vaughan et al. 2024), and there are conceptual as well as empirical reasons to expect that animal abuse similarly represents an outcome of poor emotion regulation (Parfitt and Alleyne 2017).

A relevant but more specific dimension of emotion regulation is self‐control (Gratz and Roemer 2004), which is commonly liked to reactive aggression (Denson et al. 2011, 2012) and can be expected to relate to animal abuse (Agnew 1998). Individuals who are low in self‐control have been described as “impulsive, insensitive, physical (as opposed to mental), risk‐taking, short‐sighted, and non‐verbal” (Gottfredson and Hirschi 1990, 90). Many empirical tests have rendered low self‐control as one of the most consistently valuable predictors of crime (for reviews, see Britt and Gottfredson 2003; DeLisi 2005). Moreover, adolescents scoring one standard deviation above the mean on the Self‐Control Scale have an odds ratio of 5.36 of becoming a career criminal (DeLisi and Vaughn 2008). Previous studies have shown that impulsivity or low self‐control are related to animal abuse (Hughes et al. 2020; Mowen and Boman 2020; Newberry 2017; Parfitt and Alleyne 2017; Ramírez and Andreu 2006). Similarly, a large adult study (N = 43,093) found that impulse control disorders and animal cruelty were related (Vaughn et al. 2009).

2. Methods

2.1. Procedure

The study sample included participants in a large national government‐funded web‐based survey aimed at students from all over France. The survey was presented as a study on student social relationships. Participants were compensated with various incentives such as entry into a lottery with the chance of winning various prizes including smartphones and Bluetooth speakers. The survey was implemented using the Qualtrics survey platform between November 2023 and February 2024. All the responses were anonymous and confidential. The respondents were allowed to skip any question on the survey at any point during completion to ensure the quality of the responses, and limit any negative reaction that may have been induced by forced answers (Buchanan and Hvizdak 2009; Sischka et al. 2022).

2.2. Study Sample

Those participants who failed either of the two quality check items or did not answer the item on animal abuse (N = 653) were excluded. The final sample included 55,040 participants from all 101 French departments (including overseas departments), with a median age of 20 years (age range 16–65 years old). A total of 66.8% of the respondents self‐defined as female at birth and 32.8% as males (0.4% did not answer). Regarding their year of study, 29.1% were in the first year of higher education, 20.7% in the second year, 18.5% in the third year, 12.8% in the fourth year, 11.3% in the fifth year, and 7,2% in the sixth year or more.

2.3. Measures

2.3.1. Demographics

The participants were asked to report their age (M = 21.24, SD = 3.93; Age range was 16–65 years, but 97% of the participants were under 30 years old). They also reported their gender, coded 1 = male 2 = female, and their father's educational level (a proxy of socioeconomic status, see Aarø et al. 2009) which were combined into six levels: below baccalaureate ¹ (31.4%), baccalaureate (11.8%), one or 2 years after baccalaureate (13.3%), 3 or 4 years after baccalaureate (14.6%), and 5 or more years after baccalaureate (29%).

2.3.2. Financial Situation

As a proxy for their parent's economic situation (Martinez et al. 2009; Rubin and Wright 2015), the participants were asked if they had been in paid employment during their university studies. Their replies were coded 1 = Yes (29.3%) and 0 = No (69.7%),

2.3.3. Social Bonding Variables

2.3.3.1. Attachment to Parents

The following two questions from Bègue et al. (2016) were proposed to measure attachment to parents, with options ranging from 1 (completely false) to 7 (absolutely right): I feel very close to my father (M = 4.68, SD = 1.89); I feel very close to my mother (M = 5.57, SD = 1.49).

2.3.3.2. Belief in a Just World

Belief in a just world was measured with a three‐item BJW for others scale based on Lipkusa et al. (1996) and Bègue and Bastounis (2003), with the scale having been used in this form in France previously (Bègue and Muller 2006). Example items: I feel the world treats people fairly; and I feel that people get what they deserve. A 7‐point Likert‐type survey was used, with options ranging from 1 (completely false to 7 [absolutely right]. The items were aggregated and averaged (M = 3.51, SD = 1.16, Cronbach's α = 0.73).

2.3.4. Strain Factors

2.3.4.1. Strain During Childhood and/or Adolescence

Four questions (see below) were introduced by the following sentence: “We are going to talk about situations that some people have experienced during their childhood and adolescence. Have you …?”

2.3.4.1.1. Material Deprivation

We measured adverse social experience with the following single item: Have you suffered from material deprivation (insufficient food, economic insecurity; housing problems, access to medical care); (Yes (coded 1) = 11.8%); No (Coded 0) = 88.2%.

2.3.4.1.2. Conflict With Parents

Conflict with parents was measured with the following single item: Have you had a very serious conflict with your parents, or one of your parents? Yes (coded 1) = 16.1%; No (Coded 0) = 83.9%.

2.3.4.1.3. Violence in the Family

Three separate items measured violence in the family: Have you witnessed physical violence by your father against your mother? Yes (Coded 1) = 8%; No (Coded 0) = 92%; Have you witnessed physical violence by your mother against your father? Yes (Coded 1) = 3.5%; No (Coded 0) = 96.5%; Have you Noticed serious tensions or a climate of violence between your parents? Yes (Coded 1) = 24.7%; No (Coded 0) = 75.3%.

2.3.5. Current Psychological Distress

We relied on the Mental Health Inventory 5 (MHI‐5, Ware and Sherbourne 1992) to assess psychological distress. This brief measure of general mental health is based on five items and is used to screen for depressive symptoms and feelings of anxiety (Rumpf et al. 2001; Ten Have et al. 2024; Yamazaki et al. 2005). Example items: How much of the time in the previous 4 weeks have you been a nervous person; How much of the time in the previous 4 weeks have you felt downhearted and blue? A 6‐point Likert‐type survey was deployed, with options ranging from 1 (Never or almost never) to 6 (Most of the time) (M = 3.23; SD = 1.07; Cronbach's α = 0.85).

2.3.6. Substance Use

We relied on Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test C (Audit C, Bohn et al. 1995) to measure alcohol consumption. This short screening test developed by the World Health Organization is based on three questions (M = 1.52; SD = 0.92; α = 0.84). Example items: How often did you have a drink containing alcohol? The response options were Never, Monthly or less, two or four times a month, two or three times a week, or four or more times a week; How many drinks did you have on a typical day when you were drinking in the past year? The response options were: None, I do not drink; 1 or 2, 3 or 4, 5 or 6, 7 to 9, or 10 or more. Cannabis use was measured with the single question: In the last 12 months, have you smoked cannabis? Yes (coded 1) = 18.2%; No (coded 0) = 81.8%.

2.3.7. Psychological Dimensions

2.3.7.1. Callousness

We used the Callousness Scale, an 11‐item subscale of the Inventory of Callous‐Unemotional Traits (ICU) scale by Essau et al. (2006). Example items: I do not care who I hurt to get what I want; I do not feel remorseful when I do something wrong; and I do not care who I hurt to get what I want. A 7‐point Likert‐type survey was used, with options ranging from 1 (Completely false) to 7 (Absolutely right) (M = 2.48; SD 0.69; Cronbach's α = 0.70).

2.3.7.2. Lack of Self‐Control

This dimension was measured with the 6‐item Impulse Control Difficulties, a subscale of the DERS (Difficulties in Gratz and Roemer 2004). Example items include: When I'm upset, I have difficulty controlling my behaviors; and I experience my emotions as overwhelming and out of control. A 7‐point Likert‐type survey was used, with options ranging from 1 (Completely false) to 7 (Absolutely right) (M = 2.52; SD 1.187; Cronbach's α = 0.88).

2.3.7.3. Sensation Seeking

Sensation seeking was measured using the Sensation Seeking Scale‐Form V (SSS‐V, Stephenson et al. 2003) based on four items. Example items: I like to do frightening things; I like new and exciting experiences, even if I have to break the rules. A 7‐point Likert‐type survey was used, with options ranging from 1 (Completely false) to 7 (Absolutely right) (M = 3.49; SD = 1.30: Cronbach's α = 0.78).

2.4. Animal Abuse Perpetration

Several scales are currently available with which to measure animal abuse perpetration, such as the ATAS scale (Gupta and Beach 2001), the Inventory on animal‐related experience (Flynn 1999), and the Experience with animals self‐report survey (Henry and Sanders 2007). However, in the context of the limited available space in our survey, we relied on a single‐item measure: I have already intentionally hurt an animal. Possible responses were coded 1 (Yes) or 0 (No), following some prior large‐scale studies on animal abuse (Mowen and Boman 2020; Vaughn et al. 2009).

3. Results

3.1. Descriptive Analysis

We observed that 6.4% of the participants (N = 3536) declared that they had harmed an animal on purpose. We compared animal abusers (AA) to animal nonabusers (ANA) based on χ ² and t‐tests applying Bonferroni corrections (see Table 1). The results showed that at a bivariate level, all the hypothesized differences between animal abusers and nonabusers were observed in the expected direction, except for financial situation, for which we found no significant variation between the two groups.

Table 1.

Univariate comparisons between animal abusers and animal nonabusers.

	Animal	Animal
	Nonabusers	Abusers
	N = 51,504	N = 3536	Statistical tests
Age	21.21 (3.88)	21.58 (4.48)	Tcor (3904.97) = 4.79, p < 0.001
Gender (% males)	30.9%	60.1%	χ 2cor (1) = 1265.17, p < 0.001
Father's educational level	0.96 (1.63)	1.10 (1.65)	Tcor (3462.81) = 4.48, p < 0.001
Financial situation (% paid work)	29.3%	28.9%	χ 2cor (1) = 0.22, ns
Attachment to one's mother	5.58 (1.48)	5.41 (1.53)	Tcor (4000,25) = 6.86, p < 0.001
Attachment to one's father	4.68 (1.90)	4.58 (1.88)	Tcor (54897) = 3.29, p < 0.001
Just world belief	3.51 (1.15)	3.44 (1.22)	Tcor (3954.36) = 3.35, p < 0.001
Material deprivation (% yes)	11.6%	14.7%	χ 2cor (1) = 30.76, p < 0.001
Conflict with parents (% yes)	16.0%	18.4%	χ 2cor (1) = 13.81, p.<0.001
Clim. of family violence (% yes)	24.3%	30.1%	χ 2 (1) = 59.14, p < 0.001
Violence father to mother (% yes)	7.8%	10.9%	χ 2 (1) = 41.94, p < 0.001
Violence mother to father (% yes)	3.3%	5.2%	χ 2 (1) = 34.12, p < 0.001
Psychological distress (MHI‐5)	3.24 (1.07)	3.07 (1.07)	Tcor (4024.86) = 8.91, p < 0.001
Alcohol use (AUDIT)	1.51 (0.92)	1.70 (0.99)	Tcor (3954.18) = 11.22, p < 0.001
Cannabis use (% yes)	17.9%	22.7%	χ 2cor (1) = 49.93, p < 0.001
Sensation seeking	3.46 (1.29)	3.85 (1.31)	Tcor (4009.20) = 17.12, p < 0.001
Impulse control difficulties	2.50 (1.17)	2.70 (1.26)	Tcor (3562.17) = 8.26, p < 0.001
Callousness	2.45 (0.68)	2.74 (0.74)	Tcor (3921.49) = 21.9, p < 0.001

Note: N = 55,040.

Abbreviation: Cor = corrected test.

3.2. Multivariate Analysis

A logistic regression analysis was performed to estimate the odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (95% CI) of every variable to predict the commission of animal abuse (coded 1), as opposed to the noncommission of this behavior (coded 0). Age and gender were entered into the first block of a multivariate analysis. In block 2, each potential predictive factor was added stepwise to the model using an automated forward selection procedure. The significance level used to select the variables to remain in the model was p < 0.05. Missing values in the data set were not replaced, so the number of respondents varies in the analysis. The overall model accounted for 8.5% of the variance (Nagelkerke pseudo R2).

The results showed that animal abuse was related to demographics, especially gender, but also slightly to the participant's age and their father's educational level (see Table 2). As we expected, two measures pertaining to General Strain Theory increased the odds of committing acts of cruelty: having experienced a climate of violence in the family, and having witnessed acts of violence by one's father against one's mother. All three of the selected psychological dimensions measured here were found to be relevant predictors of animal abuse: especially impulse control difficulties, callousness, and to a lesser extent, sensation seeking.

Table 2.

Multivariate logistic regression predicting animal abuse.

	Odds ratio	CI	p value
Age	1.01	1.0–1.02	0.001
Gender	0.31	0.29–0.35	0.001
Father's educational level	1.04	1.02–1.07	0.001
Attachment to one's mother	0.96	0.93–0.98	0.006
Just world belief	0.95	0.91–0.98	0.004
Climate of violence in family	1.21	1.09–1.35	0.001
Violence father against mother	1.35	1.16–1.58	0.001
Psychological distress (MH5)	0.90	0.86–0.94	0.001
Alcohol use (audit)	1.07	1.03–1.12	0.002
Sensation seeking	1.05	1.01–1.09	0.004
Impulse control difficulties	1.23	1.19–1.28	0.001
Callousness	1.28	1.20–1.36	0.001
Constant	0.10		0.001

Two variables pertaining to Social Bond Theory were also related to animal abuse, albeit quite less than GST and personality variables. Attachment to one's mother and just world beliefs, were thus inversely related to the commission of harm toward animals. In addition, as predicted by Generalized Deviance Theory, alcohol consumption was related to animal abuse.

Surprisingly, the results indicated that students who scored higher on the Mental Health Inventory‐5 tended to be less involved in animal cruelty.

4. Discussion

In this first large‐scale survey on animal abuse carried out in a higher education context in France, and based on a highly powered sample (> 55,000 participants), we observed that 6.4% of the participants declared that they had perpetrated animal abuse in the past. The percentage reported in our study is close to the results observed in another recent study in France carried out in a sample of 12,344 adolescents, in which 7.3% reported having committed acts of animal abuse in the past (Bègue 2022). The 6.4% prevalence of those who have harmed animals observed in our study is also congruent with a study from more than 50 years ago by Wolfgang et al. (1972), who observed that 6% of adolescents from the Philadelphia birth cohort of nearly 10,000 boys contributed strongly to the overall delinquency in the cohort. Contemporary criminological research has consistently demonstrated that approximately 5% of study populations are comprised of pathological offenders who account for a preponderance of serious violence (Martinez et al. 2017; Moffitt 2018; Vaughn et al. 2011, 2014).

However, this 6.4% represents a rather lower value than has been reported in some other studies on similar higher education samples, which have given various estimations ranging between 5% and 30% regarding the proportion of their participants who had engaged in animal cruelty; more specifically, 4.3% (DeGue and Dilillo 2009), 17.8% (Henry 2004), 18% (Flynn 1999), and 30% (Henry and Sanders 2007). Some disparities in the way behavior was assessed and/or in the composition of the samples may have produced these discrepancies. For example, the study by Henry and Sanders (2007) included only males, which may explain the 30% observed prevalence. Studies that use a broad definition of animal abuse, including acts of harm to insects and reptiles, would also be expected to find larger numbers of abusers in the general population, whereas studies that limit animal abuse to dogs and cats or to sadism may be expected to find fewer cases (Levin and Arluke 2009).

As in previous studies, gender was a robust predictor of animal abuse in the present results (see Baldry 2003; Bègue 2022; DeGue and Dilillo 2009; Flynn 1999; Gullone and Robertson 2008; Henry 2004; Herzog 2007; Lucia and Killias 2011). In our study, 3.8% of female participants reported having perpetrated animal harm, compared to 11.8% of males. Beyond gender, two variables had important effects on animal abuse. In line with the General Strain Theory (Agnew 1992), acts of violence by the participant's father toward their mother explained a 35% increase in odds, and a climate of violence in the family also explained a 21% increase in odds. This is consistent with numerous prior studies showing that family violence and animal abuse are often related, including in general public, community, or student samples (Cleary et al. 2021; DeGue and Dilillo 2009; Fitzgerald et al. 2022; Giesbrecht et al. 2023; Randour et al. 2021; Riggs et al. 2021; Volant et al. 2008; Wauthier and Williams 2022b; White and Quick 2018), among survivors in online intimate partners forums (Newberry 2017), in women's shelters for victims of domestic violence (Barrett et al. 2020; Fitzgerald et al. 2021) and according to police officers' observations (Campbell et al. 2021; Richard and Reese 2019).

Two personality variables also appeared to be robust predictors. First, in line with previous studies, callousness was related to animal harm (Dadds et al. 2006; Gupta 2019; Hartman et al. 2019; Stupperich and Strack 2016; Walters 2014; Hawkins et al. 2017), increasing the odds in the model by 28%. Moreover, consistent with self‐control theory (Gottfredson and Hirschi 1990), and as further elaborated by Agnew (1998), impulse control difficulties also appeared to be an important statistical predictor (23% increased odds), while sensation seeking had a more limited contribution to animal abuse (5% increased odds).

Compared to these two categories of predictors (family violence and personality), we observed that the effect size of the remaining variables, while significant, remained limited. In our multivariate model which controlled for relevant demographics, we showed that levels of animal abuse were slightly higher among students with lower attachment to their mother, which confirms the relevance of family variables that have protective effects regarding animal cruelty in younger samples (Alleyne and Parfitt 2019; Bègue 2022). In a previous study with a sample of 12,706 adolescents, maternal attachment was similarly inversely related to delinquency (Bègue et al. 2016).

The inverse relationship between a belief in justice, which is predictive of commitment to long‐term goals and inversely related to delinquent and aggressive behavior (Bègue and Muller 2006; Hafer 2000; Hafer et al. 2005; Kong et al. 2021), was also confirmed in relation to animal abuse. Finally, and consistent with a deviance generalization perspective, animal abuse was perpetrated significantly more often by participants reporting higher alcohol consumption. This result suggests that animal abuse forms part of a more generic pattern of problem‐behavior syndrome (Jessor 1991).

Several limitations of this study have to be mentioned. First, animal harm was measured with a single item. A more detailed measure should be considered in the future (e.g., see Connor et al. 2021; Gupta and Beach 2001; Flynn 1999; Henry and Sanders 2007), especially to clarify the underlying motives behind the perpetration of animal harm (Patterson‐Kane 2012), which are multiple. For example, a study based on case reports and interviews with children revealed that motivations such as curiosity, mood enhancement, peer pressure, sexual gratification, abuse, imitation, posttraumatic play, self‐injury, and rehearsal were present (Ascione et al. 1997). A more extended measure would also enable a deeper description of the nature and intensity of animal harm (DeViney et al. 1983; Munro 1996). The constraints inherent to our national student survey led us to use short measures and single‐item measures in other domains. Our measure was particularly limited in the field of attachment. We believe that the available high quality and multidimensional scales (e.g., the Relationship Structures Questionnaire by Fraley et al. 2011, or the State Adult Attachment Measure by Gillath et al. 2009) would have been an important asset here. The nature of the large‐scale survey involved the use of short measures to widen the social‐psychological scope of the analysis and to provide an estimation of the relative weight of many relevant variables. However, this may have affected the quality of the measures of some variables.

Moreover, animal abuse was assessed retrospectively without specifying a timeframe, which may have introduced bias into some replies (Hardt and Rutter 2004). In addition, although some research on the validity of self‐reported data has concluded that people are sincere about sensitive matters when appropriate precautions are taken (e.g., Hindelang et al. 1979; Ross et al. 2022; Winters et al. 1990), it is not possible to estimate the possible bias in relation to under‐ or over‐reporting animal cruelty. Furthermore, our cross‐sectional data cannot be used to establish etiological issues between the measured variables.

Moving beyond individual factors, normative beliefs regarding the value of animals and their human use may also be involved in animal mistreatment. It cannot be expected that the variables predicting pet abuse can be similarly related to individuals' behavior with pest and profit animals (Signal et al. 2018). As Nurse (2013) has suggested, thinking of animal offenders as individuals with a psychological or social adversity reflects a commonsense logic that may miss a major structural features of animal cruelty. Cultural norms potentially contribute to mistreatment by ordinary and nonpathological individuals. Animal harm is not independent of the attitudes of individuals and groups toward animals (Nurse 2013). At a global level, most animal mistreatment and killing is not actually performed by deviant individuals; rather, it is institionalized through various human activities, and therefore represents a routine, normative (Bègue 2022, 2025), and globalized practice (Cudworth 2015) as can be seen in factory farming, hunting and blood sports, the lethal trade in wildlife, animal experimentation (Vezirian et al. 2024), and environmental pollution, among other areas (Beirne 2018; see also Sollund 2017). For example, in a French study on animal harm involving a large sample of 12,344 adolescents, participants' speciesism (a form of categorical thinking which attributes a higher value and a hierarchic position to humans than animals; see Ryder 2000; Singer 1975) predicted animal harm beyond many social and psychological dimensions, and the relative weight of speciesism was found to be important. The endorsement of speciesism also predicted animal killing in a behavioral experiment paralleling biomedical research (Bègue and Vezirian 2022, 2024). Another aspect of animal abuse that was not covered by the present study are situations where abuse is the consequence of neglect (Lockwood 2018) or even prosocial intentions, such as mercy release (Wong 2024).

5. Conclusion

Our study extends the current literature on adult‐perpetrated animal abuse (Alleyne and Parfitt 2019). It indicated that strain, social bond, and general deviance are relevant dimensions alongside psychological factors, especially callousness. It also provides large‐scale confirmation of the significant role played in animal abuse by poor emotion regulation (Parfitt and Alleyne 2017; Vaughn et al. 2009), which is an important factor in aggressive behavior directed toward humans (Roberton et al. 2012). By identifying the relative weight of the key dimensions involved in this phenomenon among adults, this study contributes to the preliminary construction of a multifactorial theory of animal abuse (Alleyne and Parfitt 2019), and also illustrates the relevance of major criminological perspectives in dealing with this issue.

Ethics Statement

All procedures performed were in accordance with the ethical standards for questionnaire studies at University Grenoble Alpes, and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.