Veganism is increasingly understood as a moral lifestyle rather than a dietary choice. This study explores how individuals experience life after becoming vegan, focusing on emotional well-being, social relationships, and perceptions of society. Data were collected via a qualitative online questionnaire and analysed using inductive content analysis; participants also completed semantic differential scales assessing perceptions of veganism. Results indicated that veganism was predominantly experienced as psychologically affirming, characterised by alignment between values and behaviour. Yet participants reported emotional burden related to heightened awareness of animal suffering, social exclusion, and systemic injustice. Emotional experiences varied by social proximity, with more positive or regulated emotions reported in close relationships and predominantly negative emotions directed toward society at large. Online vegan communities emerged as important sources of support. Overall, the findings highlight veganism as a lived moral identity that fosters psychological coherence while requiring ongoing emotional regulation in a largely non-vegan world.
The current study investigated the nature of the psychological connection that exists within the human-companion animal relationship and tested which specific relational factors predict both the guardians’ psychological well-being as well as their tendency to care and feel affection for their companion animal. The following relational factors were investigated: Positive contact with one’s companion animal, quality of the human-companion animal relation, human-companion animal compatibility, attachment to the companion animal, and unconditional acceptance of one’s companion animal. Data from a diverse sample of American pet owners ( N = 535) were analyzed. Quality of the human-companion animal relation, unconditional acceptance of one’s companion animal, and positive contact with one’s animal predicted a greater tendency to care and feel affection for the animal. While quality of the human-companion animal relation also predicted higher well-being among guardians, human-companion animal compatibility was a particularly clear predictor of human well-being. In contrast, anxious attachment to one’s companion animal predicted lower human well-being. These associations were observed over and above the role played by sociodemographic and social resources variables. Finally, when levels of human-companion animal compatibility were high, guardians’ caring behaviors for their companion animal were associated positively with their own well-being, suggesting that caring for one’s animal can have positive implications for the guardians’ well-being if they perceive that the personality of their companion animal is highly compatible with their own. These findings confirm the importance of investigating the nature of the human-companion animal relationship, and contribute to identifying factors that can strengthen the benefits that both humans and animals experience within this relationship. By capturing which relational factors predict beneficial outcomes for humans and their companion animals, the current research identifies routes through which we can promote more mutuality within human-companion animal relations
Common or usual names for food products are important for regulation and consumer understanding. Because some plant-based products aimed at mimicking animal-based products are relatively new, there is little evidence concerning whether those products have common or usual names, and if they do, what those common or usual names might look like. We present evidence from a survey (Study 1) based on vocabulary tests ( N = 181) suggesting that using plant-based qualifiers (e.g., ‘veggie’) along with traditional animal terms (e.g., ‘chicken’) is commonly used to identify plant-based meat and dairy analogues. These results are complemented by the results of Study 2 that takes data from posts on social media. Co-occurrence analyses on social media posts indicated that plant-based + animal terms are often used to describe plant-based meat and dairy analogues. Together, these results suggest that consumers may already have common or usual names for many plant-based meat and dairy analogues that often involve plant-based + animal terms. These results may help guide or inform regulations involving plant-based meat and dairy analogues. Changing labels from the common or usual names may reduce consumption of plant-based meat analogues potentially impacting both consumer and animal welfare.
Despite longstanding calls for scientific consensus on the definitions and categorisation of animal-restrictive dietary groups (Ruby, 2012; Rosenfeld, 2018), significant discrepancies remain. Urgency to address this issue is only growing, as dietary diversity increases. Without a shared conceptual and methodological framework, the field risks hindering theoretical integration and meta-analytic work. In this commentary, we highlight two key considerations in dietary group categorisation, calling for greater clarity, consistency and collaboration to strengthen cumulative progress in the field.
While most often explored in fictional contexts, the ability to imagine alternative worlds (i.e., utopias and dystopias) may play a critical role in shaping human morality, justice, and social change. In the present study, we investigated ‘Vystopia’ a form of dystopian thought experienced by ethical vegans. To examine the psychosocial characteristics of vystopic vegans, we used a battery of computerized text analytic tools to analyse both behavioural and linguistic data from the r/Vystopia Reddit community (Nposts = 14,542). Several themes emerged as characteristic of vystopic discourse, including strained interpersonal relationships, philosophical pessimism, animal commodification confrontation and systemic carnism. Relative to controls, vystopic vegans used significantly more linguistic references to morality, negative emotion, mental health, and death. Taken together, our findings highlight the psychosocial consequences of dystopian worldviews, while also underscoring their adaptive potential to inspire moral reflection. This research offers foundational insights into how dystopian thinking and ethical identities intersect.
Wild animals suffer from many naturally occurring harms such as starvation, diseases, and conflicts with other animals, yet little research has been conducted on how people view the natural suffering of wild animals. In this paper we introduce the Attitudes towards Wild Animal Welfare (AWAW) scale. The AWAW scale consists of four subscales: caring about wild animal welfare, support for intervening in nature, idyllic views of nature, and intervention ineffectiveness beliefs. Items were pretested and verified across four preregistered studies (N = 2866). The factors demonstrated good reliability and strongly correlated with related measures, including general animal attitudes, speciesism, and support for specific wild animal welfare interventions. The idyllic view factor showed weaker correlations with other measures but was retained due to its theoretical significance. All four factors predicted a decision to give a bonus payment to a wild animal charity. Our aim is that the scale will facilitate further psychological research on wild animal welfare and, in turn, inform interventions and policies aimed at reducing the suffering of wild animals.
Reducing consumption of animal products is crucial to addressing the climate crisis. Educational interventions have shown promise in promoting plant-based diets, but the picture is not yet clear. Across two interventions, we examined whether brief, targeted video interventions could influence real-world dietary behaviours in university settings. Study 1 ( n = 39) employed food vouchers as a behavioural measure, revealing a significant effect: participants who watched a video focusing on the environmental tolls of animal agriculture (versus plant-based foods) were 2.5 times more likely to redeem their vouchers for vegetarian/vegan meals compared to the control group. Study 2 expanded the intervention scope (employing both an environmental- and ethics-focused intervention) and altered the outcome measure (measuring selection of vegan vs non-vegan meals at a university formal dinner). Study 2 (n = 102) effectively reduced selections of meals containing meat, but the effect was weaker than in Study 1. Methodological differences and sample limitations may explain the effect size discrepancies. These interventions highlight the potential of educational interventions for meat reduction in university contexts. To expand on this study’s results, we encourage future research to explore sustained dietary changes post-intervention, rather than single meal choices, and to test a variety of intervention videos.
Food preparation plays a key role in shaping how people perceive meat: It helps people to dissociate meat from its animal origin and allows them to eat meat without experiencing conflict. However, experimental research in this area mostly disregards or confounds two food preparation steps: disassembling and cooking. To test how disassembling and cooking affect perceptions about meat dishes, we conducted secondary analyses of a sample of omnivores from a U.S.-representative dataset (N = 1,189). In this study, participants indicated meat perceptions (self-report) in response to a picture of one meat dish that varied in the degree of disassembling (i.e., whole parts vs. chopped/minced) and cooking (i.e., raw vs. cooked). Leveraging this experimental setup, multi-level analyses revealed that disassembling and cooking reduced compassion elicited by meat dishes. Disassembling also decreased general emotional arousal, while cooking reduced negative evaluations, conflict experiences in felt ambivalence, and specific negative emotions such as disgust and anger, while increasing valence perceptions more generally and the desire to eat the dish. Moreover, psychological network analyses showed that the relations of meat-related perceptions with each other do not differ significantly between food preparation steps. By offering nuanced insights into how food preparation affects conflict experiences as well as other affective and attitudinal meat-related perceptions, this research offers various theoretical and practical implications. We therefore discuss key considerations for future research on meat-related perceptions and identify when and which interventions may be most necessary and effective in encouraging reduced meat consumption.
We present a field experiment to evaluate a social marketing campaign encouraging people to try plant-based milk. We ran six anti-dairy billboards for one month in a city in the UK. The billboards featured a photo of a suffering dairy cow, a link to a website with information about dairy cow suffering, and an appeal to try plant-based milk. To estimate the impact of the billboards on plant-based and dairy milk consumption, we triangulated three novel data collection methods. First, we compared changes in regional vs. nationwide sales data from two plant-based milk companies. Second, we evaluated the proportion of dairy-free orders from six cafes in the city where we ran the billboards (‘Billboard City’) before, during, and after the campaign. Third, we compared changes in the proportion of household waste representing plant-based or dairy milk in the Billboard City vs. another UK city with no intervention (‘Control City’). Although descriptively, our results appear to be in line with some positive impact of the billboards, ultimately the study design and data were too limited to support a general claim about the impact of the billboard campaign. There were logistical challenges with each data source, as well as too many extraneous factors for the design to account for adequately. We discuss the challenges of field research, the strengths and weaknesses of each novel data collection method, and present considerations for future research.
Do residents of states with high levels of animal agriculture have different views about animal welfare on industrialized farms compared to residents of states with low levels of animal agriculture? In a survey of residents of high and low farmed animal agriculture states in the USA (N = 1985), we found that views about farmed animal welfare were largely similar between residents of those two sets of states. Using an extreme groups analysis of the 5 highest animal agriculture (e.g., Oklahoma) and 5 lowest animal agriculture states (e.g., Massachusetts), there were no measurable differences on some key outcome variables (e.g., mental state attributions to farmed animals, knowledge of factory farming, killing practices on industrialized farms, state and farmers’ responsibility for farmed animal welfare). Among the variables where we found measurable differences (e.g., those in high animal agriculture states, compared to those in low agriculture states, knew less about animals used as food and had lower estimates of the percent of farmed animals on industrial farms), the size of those differences was small (mean Cohen’s d of variables with significant differences = |0.18|) and none involved a qualitative shift (e.g., from agree to disagree). Moreover, predictors of those views were significant and stable across residents of the two sets of states and consistent with previous research (e.g., knowledge significantly predicted magnitude of factory farming independent of state of residency). These results may help inform where, for what, and by how much differences among residences high and low animal agriculture states matter.
A compelling body of research demonstrates that diet (e.g. vegetarianism) plays an important role in the moral concern people grant to animals. However, this research has focused mostly on ‘food’ animals, leaving us with limited understanding of the scope of this effect. We investigated how vegans/vegetarians (veg*ns) and omnivores attribute mind (Study 1) and moral standing (Study 2) across a wide range of animal categories. In Study 1, veg*ns perceived greater mental capacities for most animal categories. Both veg*ns and omnivores gave some categories lesser ratings than others (e.g. evolutionarily distant vs. close to humans), suggesting that veg*ns and omnivores follow similar patterns of mind perception. In Study 2, however, veg*ns both attributed animals greater moral standing overall and gave similar ratings across categories (e.g. toward ‘liked’ animals such as rabbits and ‘disliked’ animals such as rats), whereas omnivores drew sharper distinctions between categories. These studies demonstrate that meat avoidance is a meaningful factor not only in the perceptions of animals that people eat, but also other animals.
Many individuals like eating meat but condemn causing harm to animals. Dissociating meat from its animal origins is one way to avoid the cognitive dissonance this ‘meat paradox’ elicits. While the significance of meat-animal dissociation for meat consumption is well-established, a recent literature review suggested that it consists of two distinct tendencies. First, people may differ in the degree to which they passively disassociate meat from its animal origins. Second, they may differ in the extent to which they actively dissociate to decrease dissonance. By developing and validating a scale in three pre-registered studies using samples of American and British meat-eaters, the present investigation aimed to quantitatively establish whether these two proposed tendencies constitute distinct constructs with different relations to dietary preferences, meat-related cognition, and affect. Study 1 ( n = 300) provided initial support for a normally-distributed scale with two orthogonal dimensions that were systematically and differently related to a range of individual differences and dietary preferences. In Study 2 ( n = 628), both dimensions were non-responsive to short-term cues that highlight the animal-meat link but predicted dietary preferences independent of them. Finally, Study 3 ( n = 231) showed that the dissociation dimensions predict dietary preferences even in people working in the meat industry who have long-term exposure to cues that connect meat with its animal origins. Together, the results of the three studies supported the notion that people’s dissociation tendencies can be divided into two qualitatively distinct tendencies. Implications and avenues for future research are discussed.
Human consumption of cow milk dairy is detrimental to both animal welfare and maintaining climate stability. In two studies, we investigated the relationship between dairy consumption and features of cow milk associated with disgust and food rejection: its animal origin as a bodily fluid and pathogen susceptibility. Specifically, we examined whether emphasising these features through the link between cow milk and lactate would reduce willingness to consume dairy through increased disgust. In Study 1 we conducted an online experiment ( N = 155; between-persons) manipulating the salience of these features (reading about lactation vs. digestion in cows) and measured the effect on disgust towards cow milk and willingness to consume cow milk and derived dairy products. Compared to the digestion manipulation, the lactation manipulation significantly increased disgust towards dairy, which fully mediated a reduction in self-reported consumption willingness. Study 2 was a conceptual replication with an in-person experiment ( N = 76; within-persons) using the same manipulation (reading about lactation in cows) and measuring disgust towards cow milk and behavioural intentions to eat dairy milk chocolate (serving size). We found a similar increase in disgust towards dairy but no effect on milk chocolate serving size. We conclude that emphasising the bodily nature of lactation increases disgust towards cow milk, but this does not reliably decrease intended consumption.
Most people abhor animal cruelty but choose to eat meat. To resolve feelings of conflict associated with this so-called “meat paradox”, meat-eaters appear to downplay the capacity of animals to think and feel. However, the strength of animal mind denial seems likely to vary between individuals—according to one’s concern for animal welfare or enjoyment of meat, for instance. Across two pre-registered studies (S1: N = 355, S2: N = 251), we examined personality traits, attitudes, and beliefs that may predict the strength of animal mind denial in relation to the meat paradox. Results suggest that those lower in openness/intellect or emotion regulation ability, or higher in meat-commitment, deny animal mind more strongly when reminded of the link between meat eating and animal suffering. We discuss the degree to which these findings align with dissonance-based explanations for animal mind-denial in response to the meat-paradox.
