Zoosadism

Zoosadism is pleasure derived from cruelty to animals. It is part of the Macdonald triad, a set of three behaviors that are considered a precursor to psychopathic behavior.

Research
Some studies have suggested that individuals who are cruel to animals are more likely to be violent to humans. According to The New York Times:

Helen Gavin wrote however in Criminological and Forensic Psychology (2013):

Alan R. Felthous reported in his paper "Aggression Against Cats, Dogs, and People" (1980):

This is a commonly reported finding, and for this reason, cruelty to animals is often considered a warning sign of potential violence towards humans.

Legal status
In the United States, since 2010, it has been a federal offense to create or distribute "obscene" depictions of "living non-human mammals, birds, reptiles, or amphibians ... subjected to serious bodily injury". This statute replaced an overly broad 1999 statute which was found unconstitutional in United States v. Stevens.

Criticism of alleged link to violence against humans
Critics of the concept of a propensity for cruelty to humans cite the fact that animals can be cruel to some animals yet caring to other animals, combined with Ivan Pavlov's studies using metronomes at different rates to test conditioned learning showing that humans can discriminate in fine ways that animals cannot, and conclude that there is no such general basis. The exact way these critics explain studies that seems to show links varies, but most of them state that psychiatric and criminological studies are subject to institutional bias and self-fulfilling prophecies. It is also pointed out that correlation does not prove causation.

On the other hand, Piers Beirne, a professor of criminology at the University of Southern Maine, has criticized existing studies for ignoring socially accepted practices of violence against animals, such as animal slaughter and vivisection, that might be linked to violence against humans.

See also
 Bloodsport
 Cruelty to animals

References

External links
 Four-legged Forensics: What Forensic Nurses Need to Know and Do About Animal Cruelty

Category:Abuse
Category:Animal welfare
Category:Cruelty to animals
Category:Paraphilias
Category:Zoophilia