solidarity/ˌsɒlɪˈdarɪti/
noun
1. unity or agreement of feeling or action, especially among individuals with a common interest; mutual support within a group.
Solidarity with Humans
In the realm of human interaction, solidarity explains acts of generousity and compassion. People who behave solidaric want to help others, without being asked for this help – they themselves consider it meaningful and important. The desire to help stems from a social connection with the group that needs this help. This form of connection may be grounded in three different forms of motivation: in social control (people ‚dictate‘ that it is good to help), in a rational interest, through which solidarity is increased, or in insight in cooperation. The third one means that people who tend to behave egoistically can learn solidarity and develop more trust in social relationships, if they have to cooperate with another person for a goal that they themselves consider meaningful.
Two forms of solidarity can be differentiated. ‚Group solidarity‚ is present when the same interests are pursued (e.g. working class unions), and ‚solidarity with different interests‚, where prosocial motivations are important in developing solidarity. Empathy with the disadvantaged group, as well as feelings of guilt, which result from the membership in the privileged group and moral concerns for the outgroup enhance solidarity with different interests.
Feelings of solidarity are related to outcomes like the willingness to donate, more positive feelings for the outgroup, and volunteering.1 Research on solidarity can thereby help to enhance these prosocial outcomes.
Solidarity with Animals
But how could this idea of solidarity be translated to human-animal relationships? In the case of solidarity with animals we clearly are in the solidarity with different interests subdimesion – solidarity is present in persons who are not directly affected. So empathy and moral concerns regarding animals should be able to enhance solidarity with animals. These and other outcomes were examined in a paper from Amiot and Bastian (2017)2. In 8 studies the authors were able to show that people who showed high solidarity with animals (assessed with the short questionnaire at the bottom), also show moral concern towards, and have higher empathy with animals. Furthermore the high-solidarity-people were more open to experience, and rather left leaning (with reduced racism and sexism scores).
Justifications for the use of animals were also assessed. High solidarity showed to be correlated with lower justifications and lower speciecism. Interestingly one experiment was able to demonstrate, that also perceived similarity with animals has positive effects on justifications, speciecism and moral concern. This effect however was mediated by solidarity with animals. People who perceive animals as more similar to humans therefore tend to justify eating meat less, because they feel higher solidarity with animals. You could say that perceived similarity leads to solidarity, which leads to more prosocial outcomes.
But not only these rather abstract concepts were assessed. The authors were also interested in concrete action intentions. They therefore examined whether the solidarity with animals score was able to predict animal rights activism, collective action intentions and donations. People who had a high solidarity score, showed more prosocial outcomes in all three domains even after 5 months. They tended to experience ‚warmer‘ feelings towards animals, and were more likely to identify themselves as animal rights activists. Furthermore, they had higher intentions in engaging in collective action on behalf of animals in the next 6 months, and were more likely to spend money on an animal rights NGO.
On Psychology Today, Ph.D. Herzog sums up the findings and explains roughly what individual scores mean. After summing up the scores in the box below, values above 5 would be classified as a high-solidarity-person (with the related outcomes that were discussed), values below 3 would reflect low-solidarity-people. If you are interested in your score, just take the test from the original paper below. If you want to read the full open access article, you can click here.
The Solidarity with Animals Scale
To what extent do you agree or disagree with each of the five items below? Respond using this one to seven point scale:
—Strongly Disagree – 1 point
—Disagree – 2 points
—Somewhat Disagree – 3 points
—Neither Agree or Disagree – 4 points
—Somewhat Agree – 5 points
—Agree – 6 points
—Strongly Agree – 7 points
1. I feel a strong bond toward other animals.
2. I feel solidarity toward animals.
3. I feel close to other animals.
4. I feel a strong connection to other animals.
5. I feel committed toward animals.
Scoring: Add up the points for your responses over the items and divide by five. This is your Solidarity with Animals score.
Sources
1 Bierhoff, H. W., Fetchenhauer, D. (2006). How to Explain Prosocial and Solidary Behavior: A Comparison of Framing Theory with Related Meta-Theoretical Paradigms. In: Fetchenhauer. D., Flache. A., Buunk. B., & Lindenberg S. (eds.). Solidarity and Prosocial Behavior. Critical Issues in Social Justice. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-28032-4_14
2 Amiot, C.E., Bastian, B. (2017). Solidarity with Animals: Assessing a Relevant Dimension of Social Identification with Animals. PLoS ONE 12(1): e0168184. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0168184
studies in green. 