Affective components of the human-animal relationship in animal husbandry: development and validation of a questionnaire

The aim of the present study was to identify the main dimensions of the human-animal relationship in animal husbandry and to test the hypothesis of a coherent system linking attitudes and feelings. A second objective was to assess interindividual differences which could be linked to socioenvironmental or personal factors. The 26-item questionnaire was administered to 197 animal farmers (143 men, 54 women, 3.8% under 25 years old, 45.2% under 40 years, 44.2% under 60 years and 7.1% over 60 years). To include even farmers not in the official agricultural registries, we used a random selection procedure. A principal component analysis of responses followed by varimax rotation yielded two factors accounting for 30.7% of the total variance, a Friendship factor and a Power relationship factor. Significant differences on the Friendship factor were observed between groups by sex of farmers, education, size of the production system, and region of production. There were also differences on the Power relationship factor between groups by age and education. These results validate a questionnaire with 21 items, allowing measurement of positive and negative affects of farmers towards their animals.