STUDY: Should veganism advocates talk about the animals, the environment, or human health?
Study participants read three different types of vignettes, containing the three targeted arguments: Animals, Environment, and Health. The participants then answered questions about their emotions right after reading the vignettes and then about their attitudes towards the idea of the consumption of animals and veganism. The Animals argument was the most powerful one. Other researchers have found similar results.
LUIZ SILVA SOUZA: Humans continue to exploit non-human animals (animals) for food, research, clothing, and entertainment, causing harm to the animals, the environment, and their own health. First and foremost, they harm the animals they exploit. Animal farming, for example, includes conditions of severe confinement, mutilations without anaesthesia, the separation of mothers and babies (cows and calves in the milk industry, for example), and the neglect of disease…
The exploitation of animals also causes substantial harm to the environment and human health. Focusing on their exploitation for food, animal agriculture is one of the major causes of greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, species extinction, water consumption, and land use[3]. The consumption of animal products such as ‘meat’ (animal flesh), ‘dairy’, and eggs (animal secretions) is associated with noncommunicable diseases such as cancers, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes, which are the main human killers globally…
Which one of these types of arguments should advocates use to challenge the exploitation of animals? If advocates adopt a deontological approach (that is, based on principles and individual rights), they must choose to talk about the animals. Millions of sentient individuals, capable of having complex emotions, memories, and individuality[8] are right now experiencing great suffering, making this issue the most pressing one…
To better understand these processes, I conducted a study on the effects of these three types of arguments among meat-eaters[9]. I wanted to know which type of argument would provoke the greatest amount of cognitive dissonance. Leon Festinger first defined cognitive dissonance as an unpleasant psychological tension that an individual experiences when they hold two contradictory ideas[10]. This concept applies here since meat-eaters hold contradictory beliefs regarding the harmless and harmful nature of eating animals.
In my study, I adopted a more recent and comprehensive concept of cognitive dissonance referring to a state of arousal experienced as negative emotions such as anger, shame, and guilt, that occurs when an individual perceives that they freely engage in behaviour (for example, eating animals) which causes foreseeable harm[11]. I also wanted to know if greater amounts of cognitive dissonance would lead individuals to change their attitudes, a consequence which is well-documented in the scientific literature[12]. I hypothesised that individuals that experience a high amount of cognitive dissonance would express higher positive attitudes towards the ideas of reducing and ceasing the consumption of animals.
Indeed, that is what happened. I asked the participants to read three different types of text, or ‘vignettes’, corresponding roughly to half a page, containing the three targeted arguments, ‘animals’, ‘the environment’, and ‘health’. Each participant read only one type of argument.
Therefore, it is no surprise that individual and collective actors interested in understanding or challenging the exploitation of animals frequently highlight these three types of arguments: the animals, the environment, and human health. The Vegan Society itself does so on its website, under the link “Why go vegan?”[6]. The scientific literature also highlights these three types of arguments and many scientific papers on the theme mention them in their introductory sections…
I asked the participants to answer questions about the emotions they were feeling right after reading the vignettes and then about their attitudes towards the ideas of reducing and ceasing the consumption of animals. Individuals who declared they were experiencing higher amounts of cognitive dissonance also declared more positive attitudes towards reducing and ceasing this consumption. I could also verify that the ‘animals’ and the ‘environmental’ arguments were more powerful than the ‘health’ argument to provoke dissonance and attitude change. Indeed, participants who read the ‘health’ text did not differ from participants who did not read a text at all.
Additionally, in one of the main analyses, those who read the ‘environmental’ argument were less likely to support the proposition of ceasing the consumption of animals, probably because they considered the idea that it would be possible to save the environment without ceasing this consumption. Therefore, it is possible to state that, in my study, the ‘animals’ argument was the most powerful one. Other researchers have found similar results. SOURCE…
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