Mind Perception as a Statistical Mediator between Psychedelic Experiences and Animal-Related Attitudes: A Differentiated Examination across Animal Categories
Abstract
Preregistration of a cross-sectional online study examining mind perception – the attribution of mental capacities to non-human entities – as a statistical mediator of the association between psychedelic substance use (classic psychedelics: psilocybin, LSD, DMT/ayahuasca, mescaline) and animal-related attitudes. Participants rate 15 entities from five categories (farm animals, wild animals, pets, insects/invertebrates, plants) on moral concern and three dimensions of mind perception (body, heart, mind). The study tests the associations between psychedelic substance use, mind perception, and moral concern, as well as whether mind perception statistically explains part of the association between psychedelic experience and moral concern. The same associations and mediation test are examined for further global outcomes such as speciesism, attitudes toward animal use and factory farming, and meat consumption. Mind perception and moral concern are further expected to be more strongly associated via experience-related (body and heart) than via agency/mind-related dimensions of mind perception, and the associations between psychedelic substance use, mind perception, and moral concern are expected to be more pronounced for farm animals than for other animal categories (wild animals, pets, insects/invertebrates). Additional, non-confirmatory analyses explore further dimension- and category-specific patterns, for example at the level of individual entities rather than broader categories. The study is conducted as part of a Master's thesis at the Chair of General Psychology (Motivation), University of Zurich, supervised by Dr. Matthias Forstmann.
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