Practitioners learning palliative killing: The role of norms and empathy (2019-2022)

Some groups in society are called on to kill animals or humans, and research shows that this task can be confronting, and even traumatic. The current project specifically approaches practitioners learning euthanasia and palliative killing, or killing to avert suffering. The project seeks to understand how practitioners learn palliative killing, and what the impact is on psychological variables such as empathy and identity. It will generate new understandings of social influence around life and death decisions, provide an evidence basis to inform policy makers, and help institutions and practitioners seeking to manage distress and respond to fast-moving, controversial policy changes.