Measuring perceived fitness interdependence between humans and non-humans
Abstract
Conservation ethics (i.e., moral concern for non-human organisms) are widespread, but we lack a comprehensive explanation for why people care about other species at all, and why they express strong moral concern for some species but not others. Recent theory suggests that conservation ethics might be rooted in cooperation between humans and members of other species. Building on central predictions of this eco-evolutionary theory, we conducted an online study (N = 651) and exploratory factor analysis to develop two scales that independently measure perceived fitness interdependence (PFI) and conservation ethics. The PFI scale measures perceived shared fate as a proximate indicator of human fitness interdependence with non-human organisms (i.e., the degree to which humans and other organisms influence each other’s evolutionary success, that is, survival and reproduction). We designed the conservation ethics scale to measure moral beliefs and attitudes regarding those organisms. Both scales are composed of two factors and demonstrate good internal reliability. By combining insights from various branches of the evolutionary human sciences, including evolutionary anthropology, evolutionary psychology, and human behavioral ecology, we offer empirical tools to investigate eco-evolutionary foundations of conservation ethics and behavior.
Methods
We assessed whether we are able to develop new scales for (1) human–non-human PFI and (2) conservation ethics as the necessary first step to testing these eco-evolutionary predictions. To this end, we devised an online study using 15 wild plant and animal species as target organisms and used exploratory factor analyses to assess the underlying factor structure for each scale (PFI and conservation ethics).
Results
We considered one and two-factor solutions for PFI and conservation ethics data across targets, and fit statistics for both scales indicated that the two-factor solution was the more appropriate fit for the data.
Usage notes
The data we provide in excel are the raw data, and all column headings are explained in a separate excel file called metadata.
