'Necessity' is a deeply held narrative, powerfully leveraged by animal exploitation industries. For example, the belief that eating other animals is necessary remains one of the most entrenched justifications for animal consumption and exploitation. Focus groups tests on how perceptions of necessity shape people's moral judgments about the use of animals showed practices rated as more necessary were also rated as less harmful and received less support for being banned. Conversely, practices perceived as less necessary were seen as more harmful and attracted stronger support for prohibition. A likely explanation for this is that people experience a sense of indirect culpability for supporting harmful practices. To alleviate this discomfort, they downplay the harm involved to make the practice more acceptable.
ANIMAL THINK TANK: The belief that eating other animals is necessary remains one of the most entrenched justifications for animal consumption. Our research found that, depending on how the question is framed, 50–70% of people in the UK view animal products as essential for comfort or even survival. This belief aligns with the ‘4N’ narratives—necessary, natural, normal and nice—which collectively reinforce eating animals as a societal norm.
Necessity is a deeply held narrative, powerfully leveraged by the industry. For example, the Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board’s ‘Let’s Eat Balanced’ campaign frames ‘meat’ and ‘dairy’ as essential to a healthy balanced diet. Historically, there may have been a time when consuming animals was necessary for survival, but today, this narrative no longer reflects reality.
In focus groups we’ve run, people often distinguish between ‘unnecessary’ practices, such as hunting—commonly seen as fulfilling human greed or superficial desires—and supposedly ‘necessary’ practices, such as farming animals for food or testing on them for medical research. Interestingly, participants perceived testing on animals for cosmetics as more harmful than for ‘medical’ research, despite there being little difference from the animals’ perspective.
At Animal Think Tank, we aimed to test how perceptions of necessity shape people’s moral judgments about the use of animals by surveying a representative sample of the UK public. Participants were asked about their attitudes towards 12 standard practices commonly used in farming animals. We found a near one-to-one correlation, where practices rated as more necessary were also rated as less harmful and received less support for being banned. Conversely, practices perceived as less necessary were seen as more harmful and attracted stronger support for prohibition.
A likely explanation for this comes from the psychological concept of cognitive dissonance — the unpleasant feeling that arises when one’s actions or beliefs conflict with new information. Participants may have experienced a sense of indirect culpability for supporting harmful practices. To alleviate this discomfort, they downplay the harm involved to make the practice more acceptable. A prime example is the perception of slaughtering male chicks of ‘egg-laying’ hens, which is rated as much more harmful and unnecessary than slaughtering chickens or other animals for food — despite all these practices being arguably equally cruel.
We then conducted an experiment to see if varying the necessity framing of these practices influenced their perceived harm… The findings suggest that perceptions of harm, as well as policy support, can be reduced by emphasising necessity. So it’s unsurprising the industry pushes this narrative so heavily. These public research findings align with the psychological mechanism of resolving cognitive dissonance, where diminishing the perceived necessity helps alleviate discomfort over harmful practices…
Unfortunately, none of the descriptions framing the practices as unnecessary increased their perceived harm or support for a ban. This suggests that people’s attitudes towards a practice are more strongly shaped by descriptions that frame it as necessary rather than unnecessary. In other words, the industry may have the upper hand in messaging because of this framing effect. It may be that people are particularly susceptible to narratives portraying farmers as stewards or protectors of animals, reinforcing the idea that fellow animals are not competent enough to care for themselves. In contrast, accepting the ‘unnecessary’ framing of these practices would likely require confronting some cognitive dissonance, making it harder for people to internalise these explanations…
We’ve also found ways to influence the perceived necessity of farming animals through a less direct approach. In our research, we’ve been testing how framing messages about animal freedom differently affects people’s attitudes… We identified a common theme among the messages that prompted the highest ratings of necessity: moral judgment or implied guilt.
Messages focusing on themes such as betrayal (betraying fellow animals), denying other animals their freedom, oppression, exploitation, or trauma (practices causing fellow animals trauma) may have unintentionally made participants feel personally implicated or accused of supporting harm, evoking defensiveness or hopelessness rather than motivating action. Framing our issue in negative terms and focusing on the problem can create more pushback in people and reduce support for change, compared to focusing on how our vision already aligns with people’s values.
Another pattern emerged with messages drawing comparisons between animal exploitation and human oppression, such as racism, sexism or slavery. These often provoked strong pushback and were perceived as inappropriate or overly ideological, likely due to deeply ingrained anthropocentrism—the belief that humans occupy a unique and superior place in the world.
In interviews and focus groups we ran, some participants explained why they reacted negatively to this kind of messaging: they felt comparing speciesism to racism or sexism implied that meat-eaters are as bad as racists and sexists, so they rejected the message. In short, they were rejecting a message that didn’t align with their aspirational identity of being seen as a ‘good’ and ‘moral’ person…
In contrast, messages that framed animal freedom as a positive concept — emphasising social progress, alignment with our shared values, or the idea that society and other animals are part of a larger collective or family—led to lower ratings of necessity. SOURCE…
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