User:PsychologyInsights/Psychology of Vegetarianism

Ethical and health aspects of vegetarianism have long been of interest to philosophers and nutritionists, and a formal study on psychological aspects of vegetarianism has emerged more recently since the late 20th century.

Motivations for Vegetarianism

In most cultures, few people are raised on a vegetarian diet; instead, the majority of people consciously decide to adopt a vegetarian diet at some point during their life. The three most frequently reported motivations people have for becoming vegetarian are (1) moral concerns about animal rights/welfare, (2) health advantages to eating a vegetarian diet, and (3) environmental concerns about the sustainability and impact of meat production. Other less common reasons why some people become vegetarian are based on religious beliefs, spirituality, taste preferences, or because they have family and/or friends who are vegetarian.

Vegetarians often have multiple motivations for following their diet, but most vegetarians have a specific motivation they view as their primary, most important one. After becoming vegetarian, it is common for people to develop new motivations for continuing the diet, and these new motivations may either complement or replace their initial motivation.

Vegetarians with different motivations tend to think about their diet in different ways. Compared to health-motivated vegetarians, ethically motivated vegetarians tend to view their diet as more important to them and may be more likely to maintain a vegetarian diet for a longer period of time. Different motivations for vegetarianism also have distinct correlates with how people perceive animals. Compared to health-motivated vegetarians, ethically motivated vegetarians are more likely to see animals as possessing a rich capacity to experience emotions. Many researchers have studied vegetarians’ motivations by classifying them as either ethical motivations or health motivations, and studies have differed in terms of whether or not they consider environmental motivations alongside animal rights/welfare as a type of ethical motivation.

A team of researchers led by Christopher Hopwood created a Vegetarian Eating Motives Inventory that measures how much importance people place on health vs. environmental vs. animal rights motivations for reducing their meat intake. Using this questionnaire, the researchers found that health was the most common motivation that current meat-eaters would likely have for becoming vegetarian if they were to do so in the future.

A theory by Daniel Rosenfeld and Anthony Burrow proposes that any type of motivation someone has for being vegetarian can be conceptualized in terms of distinct prosocial, moral, and personal elements. The researchers reason that people might perceive their abstention from meat as prosocial because it improves other beings’ lives, society, or the world; as moral because it aligns with their values of right vs. wrong; or as personal because it improves their own health or well-being. Rosenfeld and Burrow created a Dietarian Identity Questionnaire that measures the extents to which people subjectively think of their meat consumption/avoidance as oriented toward prosocial, moral, and personal goals.

Political Ideology and Vegetarianism

Vegetarianism is more strongly linked to liberal ideology than to conservative ideology. Compared to conservatives, liberals tend to hold more positive ideas about vegetarianism, are more likely to follow a vegetarian diet, and are more likely to quit vegetarianism and return to eating meat if they do adopt a vegetarian diet.

Some proposed reasons for these political-ideological differences are that, compared to conservatives, liberals are more likely to support social justice issues related to vegetarianism and to feel like they have social support for being vegetarian. Additionally, factors encouraging conservatives to engage in greater meat consumption include the belief that humans have supremacy over other animals as well as the perception that vegetarians are a threat to society.

Gender and Vegetarianism

Vegetarianism is more strongly linked to men and masculinity than to women and femininity. The majority of vegetarians are women, and among meat-eaters, women report being more open to reducing their meat intake than men do. Compared to women, men hold meat in a more positive light, thinking that meat tastes better and is less harmful to their health or to the environment. Men are also more likely than women are to report feeling emotional attachments to meat. The idea that meat is stereotypically for men transcends across many cultures and may reflect a notion of men as strong and dominant over other beings. Women, indeed, tend to support animal rights more strongly than men do. Some psychological differences exist by gender among vegetarians, with vegetarian women reporting more prosocial motivation for following their diet and more adherence to their diet than do vegetarian men.

Vegetarianism as a Social Identity

Beyond simply a behavior, vegetarianism is thought to be a type of social identity. Based on self-categorization theory and social identity theory, psychologists have proposed that the act of consuming vs. forgoing meat is readily a basis for perceiving social in-groups and out-groups around eating behavior, and in turn can be a cue to perceiving oneself as a member of a unique social group.

One framework conceptualizing vegetarianism as a social identity, called the Unified Model of Vegetarian Identity, distinguishes between what dietary pattern people follow and what label they use to describe themselves, as these two components may each signal vegetarian status but are not interchangeable, and can be inconsistent: In other words, someone can eat a vegetarian diet (i.e., yes dietary pattern) without self-identifying as vegetarian (i.e., no label), or someone can self-identify as vegetarian (i.e., yes label) but still decide to eat some meat (i.e., no dietary pattern). With the possibility of such diet and self-identification inconsistencies arise the potential for social identity threats, where the legitimacy of one’s status as a vegetarian may be called into question. Just as social identity processes may threaten one’s position as a vegetarian, they may also bolster it: Researchers have posited that the desire to possess and affirm a sense of vegetarian identity may motivate some people to follow a vegetarian diet.

Adherence to Vegetarian Diets

Several studies have documented reports of vegetarians who violate their diets and eat meat occasionally. In one study involving 243 self-identified vegetarians, 51% of the vegetarians reported that they have eaten meat at least once since they first became vegetarian. Within this study, these participants provided narratives describing the experiences in which they have violated their diet and eaten meat. The most common reason vegetarians had for violating their diet was that they sought to make a social situation unfold more smoothly, specifically when eating meat was the social norm and refraining from eating meat could seem rude, burdensome, or socially disruptive. Vegetarians reported that their dietary violations typically occurred while they were at family gatherings or while celebrating a special occasion. When reflecting on their dietary violations, vegetarians were more than twice as likely to feel that their experience eating meat was a negative one than a positive one, with feelings of guilt and sickness often following a dietary violation.

Vegetarians who adhere to their diet strictly tend to hold different attitudes toward meat and animals than do vegetarians who are willing to violate their diet. Compared to more flexible vegetarians, vegetarians who are committed to strict dietary adherence are more likely to feel disgusted by meat and to dislike meat’s taste, texture, and appearance. The motivation a vegetarian has following their diet is also associated with their attitudes toward meat and their dietary adherence. Vegetarians who are motivated by animal rights/welfare are more likely to feel disgusted by meat and adhere to their diet strictly, whereas vegetarians motivated by either health or environmental concerns are more likely to violate their diet and eat meat on occasion.

Attitudes Toward Vegetarians

Attitudes toward vegetarians are mixed in valence. On average, people hold fairly positive views of vegetarians and ascribe to them many favorable traits, such as seeing them as moral, disciplined, and healthy. At the same time, many negative perceptions of vegetarians exist, with people seeing vegetarians as judgmental, preachy, weird, radical, and self-righteous. Psychologists posit that negative attitudes toward vegetarians stem from forms of motivated cognition among meat-eaters, whereby meat-eaters derogate vegetarians because vegetarians seem morally threatening and challenge the status quo. Gender differences in attitudes toward vegetarians are two-fold: Not only do men hold more negative attitudes toward vegetarians than women do, but also men are viewed more negatively for being vegetarian than women are.

Variants of Vegetarians

Psychological research on vegetarianism has often concurrently examined variants of the diet, such as veganism (forgoing all animal products), pescatarianism (consuming fish/seafood, but forgoing other meats), and flexitarianism (eating a partially meat-reduced diet).

Vegans. Compared to vegetarians, vegans are more likely to follow their diet for animal rights/welfare motivations, to see their diet as a central part of their identity, and to think that meat is disgusting. People tend to have more negative attitudes toward vegans than they do toward vegetarians.

Pescatarians. Compared to vegetarians, pescatarians are more likely to follow their diet for health rather than ethical reasons, to perceive different species of animals as having different levels of moral worth, to believe that fish lack the ability to feel pain, and to think that consumption of fish is healthful. An estimated 25-37% of pescatarians subjectively consider themselves to be vegetarian, which is in part because many pescatarians do not classify fish as a type of meat.

Flexitarians. Compared to vegetarians, flexitarians are more likely to follow their diet for health or environmental reasons rather than animal rights/welfare. Flexitarians also see their diets as less central to their identity than vegetarians see their diets. Flexitarians vary in how strongly they self-identify with vegetarianism, with some flexitarians seeing themselves mainly as meat-eaters and other flexitarians seeing themselves as close to fully vegetarian. A flexitarian is more likely to self-identify with vegetarianism if they consume meat at a low frequency and morally reject the idea that animals are meant to be food.