We predicted that furries would feel strongly about animal rights, given their interest in anthropomorphic animals and given that psychological research has shown that anthropomorphized representations of non-human things increases empathy and compassion toward them. As such, we assessed furries’ attitudes toward animal rights, and compared them to non-furries who took the survey and to therians, who, as a group, identify with non-human animals. 83% of furries reported that they supported animal rights, while 7% said that they considered themselves to be an animal rights activist; these numbers did not differ significantly from the responses of non-furries. Therians, on the other hand, were significantly more likely to both support animal rights (94%) and to self-identify as an animal rights activist (19%).1
We also asked participants the extent to which they agreed or disagreed (on a 1-5 scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree) with 28 different animal rights issues. Furries strongly showed strong concern about the displacement of animals for land use, the use of animals in laboratory research, pain and suffering in animals, wearing of animal fur, and cosmetics testing on animals. However, they were far less bothered by items assessing the morality of eating animals or the use of animal products. When it came to their score on the scale overall, therians scored significantly higher than furries on concern for animal rights.
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