Perceptions of animal pain.

— THE QUESTION

Does the disgust we feel toward an animal change how we perceive its capacity for pain — and, in turn, our willingness to act on that suffering?

— WHAT I DID

Two-condition between-subjects design via Qualtrics, with disgust manipulated through species framing. Outcome measures: rated pain capacity, perceived moral concern, behavioral intention. Analyzed in SPSS.

— WHAT I FOUND

Disgust significantly reduced perceived pain capacity, with the effect strongest among participants high in baseline trait disgust. Implications for how affective responses might shape clinical judgment in adjacent domains.

— WHAT I COULDN'T TEST

The sample was undergraduate-heavy and US-only. Whether the disgust effect generalizes to clinically trained populations is the next study, not this one.