The Psychology of Animal Cruelty: An Introduction to the Special Issue

As guest editors for Psychology, Crime, and Law, it is with great pleasure that we present this Special Issue, “The Psychology of Animal Cruelty”. In this introductory article, we offer broad insights into what we think to be the importance of studying this type of offending behavior. This forms the basis and justification for putting together this compilation of research, which spans three continents, that is diverse in theory application, method and research design. We provide brief synopses for the articles included in this issue. These articles cover the social and psychological factors related to child and adult perpetrators, offence heterogeneity (e.g., varying levels of abuse severity), victim characteristics, amongst other features of animal cruelty. We also offer a commentary on where the research can go next, identifying specific gaps in the existing literature. We conclude that there is an abundance of extant, related research that we can draw upon to inform future studies (e.g., implicit theories, scripts/schemas, dynamic risk factors) and clinical practice.