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Programs & CampaignsThe Psychological Effect on Students of Using Animals in Ways that They See as Ethically, Morally and Religiously WrongTheodora Capaldo, Ed.D. President (02/21/01) —In the 1950's, psychologist Hebb told us that for optimal learning and performance there must be an optimal level of stimulation. At low levels, he explained, sensory messages may not get through. At high levels, as in stress, learning and performance actually decline. His laboratory confirmed what most of us already knew through our experiences (Hebb, 1972). Decades of studies of people under stress repeatedly confirmed that the majority of people become disorganized and function with less effectiveness if they are in crisis. Studies told us that a full 15% are unable to function at all (Tyhurst, 1951, pp. 746-69). The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV (DSM IV, 2000, p. 424), the American Psychiatric Association’s reference to diagnostic criteria, explains that in psychological trauma:
The DSM IV defines trauma as:
The DSM IV limits their definition to a "threat to one's physical integrity." What if at stake is one’s emotional or ethical integrity? And why do they not also include "witnessing an event that involves death, injury or a threat to"… an animal? This very basic introduction to the psychology of trauma clarifies that psychology has not yet embraced the magnitude of trauma that students can suffer when forced to participate in the use of animals for their education in ways that the students see as ethically, morally or religiously wrong. Under the stress of forced dissection – or dog lab, or any other harmful use of an animal – education is thwarted. When forced to use animals in ways the student objects to, the student is traumatized and invariably learns less. Through the work of writers such as Carol Adams, (Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations, 1995), steps have been made to take seriously the relationship between domestic abuse of animals, children and women. As we make the case that, for some of us, what goes on under the guise of education is animal abuse, we will begin to make the violence connection in this educational context as well. In short, trauma occurs, when there is a threat to one’s ethical integrity from direct personal experience of "death or serious injury" to an animal. During the years that students are being exposed to the harmful use of animals in education, they are busy accomplishing several major developmental tasks. Two of these are: 1) the development of an identity – a sense of self and 2) the development of moral character – a sense of social and moral responsibility. During the development of identity, peer acceptance is critical. Who we are shifts from being shaped by our parents or caregivers, to being worked out in the context of our peers. To take a stand against something that appears to be acceptable to the majority is difficult even for most adults. One can only try to imagine – or remember – what it is like for 11- or 14-year-olds to have to go against both the authority of their teacher and the acceptance of their peers. If in this process of difficult and often frightening self-expression, students receive criticism, punishment or ostracism, their self-expression is wounded, often severely. They will either continue to define themselves as someone who is marginal – someone outside of everyone else – or they will concede and become who they believe others want them to be. They will either really become that, forfeiting their true identity or they will pretend to become that, dooming themselves to a life of pretense. It is important that young children and adolescents not go through hell’s gates in their efforts to not participate in something that they see as cruel or ethically repugnant. We must give students not only permission but support and even reward for having the courage of their convictions. If we support and reward them, rather than seeing objections as "problems" or as something which is the teacher’s responsibility to "help" the student "get over," we would be providing students with an opportunity to fortify not only their own identity and moral development but also the moral development of others witnessing and being challenged by their different ethical perspective. Instead, sadly, for most students this opportunity feels more like an assault than a learning experience. One teacher boasted that, "Students who prefer not to dissect… work with the team as a reader.… This has always been acceptable to my students who initially object …. I have an ex-student in vet school right now who, the first three days as a reader, was teary eyed [italics mine] through the whole thing! (College Board Web site, 2001)" Such insensitivity to the student and such blindness to one’s own insensitivity betray the seemingly innocent perpetrator of the trauma. Some teachers do not get that for this student, something very horrible is going on and that he or she feels helpless to do anything about it. Conscientious objection must not just be a theoretical or a legal right but a day-to-day right. Moral development is fostered by being allowed to make decisions based on one’s growing values. From high school dissections to the often cruel and harmful use of animals in medical, psychological and veterinary training, the psyches of our students are harmed when they are asked to do things that they emotionally cannot. Consider the deep conflict that veterinary students are in when they learn the dictum to which all practitioners are suppose to adhere… Prima non nocere … "first do no harm." Yet it is highly likely that in traditional veterinary training, their learning experiences will include intentionally hurting and killing healthy animals. Education must stop putting students in double bind conflicts that create stress, depression, anxiety and in unrelenting cases, dissociative symptoms. In a double bind conflict, there is impetus to both approach and avoid the same situation. When we delude students into thinking that a given animal exercise is critical to their learning, they, of course, want to learn. And yet the nature of the actual exercise is something that many, based on their ethics and feelings, will want to avoid. An approach-avoidance situation is always fraught with stress and deep internal conflict. Consider one example we heard about through vet students. We learned that many students, though opposed to dog lab, decided to participate in it as an elective. We heard about the cloud of solemnity that accompanied many of them to class; we heard about the tears that were shed; and we heard how some "just got drunk (NEAVS’ investigations, 1999-2000)." Remembering the challenge to one’s sense of identity that such situations pose, remembering the challenge to one’s moral integrity that such situations impose, we wondered why so many continued to participate despite their own objections. The words of one student captured both the conflict and the pained resolution: "I decided that I was either going to have to kill the beagle puppy in class or I might one day be responsible for killing the puppy of the little boy who came to my office (Conversation with Tufts graduate, 1999)." In other words, the decision came from an internal belief of being trapped between two evils. When someone has experienced a trauma… be that to one’s physical or emotional or ethical self… in reaction to harm to not only oneself, or to people, but to any sentient being, there can be long-term psychological effects consistent with what happens in trauma. The "recurrent and intrusive distressing recollections of the event (DSM IV, p. 219)" that help define trauma are often a part of one’s experience with harming animals under the name of education. Most people remember their high school dissection. They may not remember much from their language, geometry or math class, but they often do remember biology. It is commonplace to hear physicians – for whom the blood and guts of life present no problem – remembering and saying things such as, "I will never forget what we did to those poor dogs in medical school (NEAVS’ Viewpoints 2000 series, #3, p. 4)." These recollections are not from good lessons learned but rather from the trauma at seeing another living being treated cruelly and callously within a sanctimonious situation of approval. Like scar tissue formed around old injuries, the psyche attempts to heal the traumatic event in a number of ways. But unlike the oyster who turns the traumatic irritant into a beautiful pearl, the human psyche suffers when energy has to be maintained around a traumatic memory. Such trauma can become a negatively formative influence in life choices. Among possible coping mechanisms to deal with the effects of trauma are the following: Withdrawal is perhaps the first and most typical response, reflective of our fight or flight instinctual natures. When one’s objections are not heard, when one feels hopeless to fight an infinitely bigger opponent, then withdrawal becomes the only route of escape. This can look like the obvious "quitting" a class to the more subtle sealing of oneself up so that emotions are not betrayed…. It is a kind of grin-and-bear-it response that allows participation, leaving the heart and soul protected. In its most severe manifestation, withdrawal can take the form of a dissociative reaction where the individual is not just blocking feelings but actually becomes incapable of feeling the feelings. The individual experiences the required and disturbing act as if "watching oneself from above," as if "it were someone else doing it." Dissociative reactions, when adopted as a way of dealing with crises, leave individuals outside the realm of their own experience. Students have related how "dissociating" was the "only way they could get through it." This is perhaps the most dangerous form of withdrawal – the highest cost is paid by the self. Avoidance is a secondary and fortifying attempt to cope. Withdrawal may involve quitting a class, but going even further and changing one’s major and career path introduces avoidance. If entering a career in science means having to harm animals, the only option may be to avoid science. Examples of this tragedy are abundant: individuals who wanted with their whole hearts and souls to pursue a career in science but when confronted with what felt like a forced choice between their ethics and their career aspirations, chose their ethical integrity and lost their career options. While both genders are confronted with this dilemma, our research indicates that it is typically female students who struggle with the ethical questions raised by forced dissection. Our investigation indicates that a full 76% of all our calls and inquiries about conscientious objection come from females. The National Antivivisection Society’s nationwide "Dissection Hotline" reports that an estimated 64 -80% of their callers over the last 10 years have been females (NAVS representative, 2001). And the Humane Society of the United States informed us that in a one year period 70% of their requests for assistance and information were from females (HSUS representative, 2001)." It is important to note that the objections of females to the practice of the harmful use of animals do not come from what might be assumed stereotypical qualities such as "squeamishness." Quite the opposite. Most women today who voice their concerns are doing so on the strength of their moral convictions. Many articulate that while they would have no problem working on ethically sourced cadavers – even human cadavers – they do have a problem with the wanton and unnecessary taking of life for lessons better learned in better ways. During our dissection bill hearing, a female board-certified plastic surgeon flew in from New York to eloquently make this point. For her, removing people’s faces, skin-grafting their burns and the other responsibilities of her job were of no concern, for she knew they were being done for good. She did, however, strongly object to taking the life of even one small frog since it was being done for naught. Some objecting voices are muffled by attempts to be accepted into what are typically male dominated fields and values. The same plastic surgeon remembers with horror her defense in medical school where, she explained, she "mastered" breaking the necks of rats as a way to "prove" she was as good as any of the "guys." It is her shame and sadness over what, as she said, she "resorted" to that impels her to speak on behalf of today's women to spare them this cruel compromise (NEAVS’ Viewpoints 2000 series #2, pp. 2-3). (Many stories such as this are chronicled in NEAVS’ Viewpoints 2000 series.) The National Science Foundation reported that in the U.S. while women are 51% of the population and 46% of the workforce, they make up only 22% of scientists and engineers (ESEC Fact Sheet, 2000). The American Medical Association reports that only 22% of all U.S. physicians are women (ESEC Fact Sheet, 2000). One cannot help but wonder why, when female students are more likely to take high school biology than boys (95 % versus 92%) (ESEC Fact Sheet, 2000), our make-up of scientists and physicians does not somehow reflect this. The anecdotal evidence and growing body of statistics inform us that girls who are forced to dissect or who experience difficulties in having alternatives made available, may reject the possibility of further study in biology despite inherent interest. ESEC’s records include the following statements from female students – testimonials to the credibility of this hypothesis: "[Science] use to be my favorite subject." "I never took another class in biology [after dissection]." "I just felt that if I wasn't involved in science I wouldn't have to [dissect]." "I know I would never [pursue] a career that required dissection." And perhaps most thoughtfully, "Previously, I’d wanted to be a veterinarian. Science classes were always my favorite. I chose not to take a science class my senior year and took computer science instead of a lab science in college. I was appalled by the disrespect for life [that was] demonstrated (ESEC brochure, 2000)." Since the gender gap in the sciences is great and since we are loosing strong, capable, bright and compassionate people in the sciences, then every route possible to engage and retain women in science should and must be made. Conscientiously objecting males, though a minority, are often hit harder with criticism for their compassion. I remember a PhD-level male anthropologist who informed me that he had started as a medical student but dropped out after a shocking demonstration of burn trauma involving immersing a lightly anesthetized young female dog into boiling water. The consequence of forcing persons to do something against their beliefs takes its toll not only on the animals and students involved but on the whole of society. When the status quo is not only maintained but becomes a rite of passage, then growth and enhancement of that society and of that discipline are stymied by prejudice, tradition and fear. In closing, it is important to visit the research of Stanley Milgram. Milgram, a Yale University psychologist, was interested in investigating the "conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience." I quote:
It is critical to remember that the so-called teachers were free to leave the experiment at any stage. They were pressured only by the authority of the scientist in charge. In fact: Milgram’s experiment has been criticized because the prestige of science – represented by the display of technology, the clean white rooms, the experimenter in his white coat – led subjects to behave in a way they never would do in real life…. (Milgram, 1974) Most mention of Milgram’s work surrounds the ethical implications of deceiving participants. Many of Milgram’s subjects came away from the experiment so distressed by what they had seen themselves do that they required treatment for depression. The implications of educational authorities forcing students to engage in behaviors that the students see as inconsistent with who they are must be seriously considered. Coercing – intentionally or unintentionally – students to participate in the harmful use of animals in their education interferes with learning. Observational and critical thinking skills can be dulled (Kelly, 1985, in Cunningham, 2000, pp. 191-212). Students can become numb to what was once rightfully disturbing to them (Thomas et al, 1977, in Cunningham). How tragic is the regularly occurring disregard of students’ beliefs – beliefs that reflect a more progressive and compassionate ethic than mainstream science education now holds. And how tragic that some who cannot bear the weight of the difference of their ethics, succumb to the prevailing beliefs and in engage in the, at first, abhorrent exercises. The remedy to end the psychological damage being done to students is neither complicated nor out of reach. We know the problems, we know the consequences, and we know the solutions. In creating an environment in which all students can learn because it respects and enhances the worth of every student, educators play an influential role in the development of morals and in the acquisition of not simply knowledge but, more importantly, wisdom. It is often the role of the more sensitive, the more careful, the more thoughtful, the more aware, to light the way for others. It is often that those bearing enlightened ethics and the values of tomorrow pay dearly with their own pain. Instead, when students take to their classrooms a higher ethic than what most of science accounts to--when they bring the visionary wisdom of these ethics-- then good education MUST be shaped by them. References
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