ABSTRACT
Just as people seem to come in types (middle-class, rich, old, homeless), so do animals (pets, predators, prey, pests). The societal images of animal species reflect socially shared beliefs about different animals – social stereotypes. Similar to the case of human social groups, animal stereotypes could predict human emotions and behaviors toward different animals. Accordingly, in parallel to human-human intergroup responses, this chapter develops a new human-animal intergroup framework linking humans’ beliefs (stereotypes), emotions (prejudice), and behaviors (discrimination) toward animal species, drawing on the Stereotype Content Model and Behaviors from Intergroup Affect and Stereotypes Map. Expanding the human-animal intergroup framework, the types of human intergroup conflicts and human-animal conflicts are compared. An intergroup relations approach can contribute to the study of human-animal relations by taking into account different kinds of animal species’ stereotypes, as well as similarities between human-human and human-animal conflicts.
