{"id":781867,"date":"2026-08-31T09:35:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T13:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=781867"},"modified":"2026-08-31T10:04:53","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T14:04:53","slug":"why-telling-people-how-bad-factory-farming-is-doesnt-always-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=781867","title":{"rendered":"THE NUMBERS GAME: Why telling people how bad factory farming is doesn’t always work"},"content":{"rendered":"

The knowledge gap about factory farming is very, very real. But simply telling people about how big the problem is won\u2019t move them to act. Seeing the problem shrunk down to feel more solvable (like in a local campaign). If we can\u2019t, it\u2019s probably best to skip the statistics entirely and simply get people to care about a specific animal. You are probably familiar with the phrase ‘one death is a tragedy, one million is a statistic.’ It\u2019s true. We are more likely to feel empathy for a single individual than for a group, including a group of animals.<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

BJORN:<\/strong> The recently released Project Phoenix report, written in collaboration with Laila Kassam and Natalie Braine, is based on a survey of 2,000 people in the UK to better understand their views on factory farming. What we found was pretty optimistic! Two-thirds of Brits say that factory farming is wrong or raises moral concerns, 54% want it ended or phased out (not just regulated), and a slim majority (51%) think we should all be eating a lot less meat… We asked everyone what percentage of animals in the UK they thought were factory-farmed. 96% of respondents either underestimated the number or had no idea…<\/em><\/p>\n

My first thought when I saw this massive knowledge chasm was the most obvious: correct it. Just tell people how bad it really is, and we\u2019re halfway to solving the problem! It\u2019s an instinctive and natural reaction that I had \u2014 but it\u2019s also dead wrong. In 1992 researchers ran what would become an infamous study in donor psychology. People read a story about migratory birds drowning in uncovered oil ponds and were asked how much they\u2019d pay to prevent it. Simple enough. The catch was that different people saw different numbers of affected birds \u2014 2,000, 20,000, or 200,000. It made almost no difference in how the three groups chose to donate: $80, $78, and $88, respectively.<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s been replicated many times since, swapping in different victims \u2014 refugees, farmed animals \u2014 creating a clear pattern: as the scale of a problem increases, our concern for it barely budges. We are all scope-insensitive… There\u2019s a reason our brains work this way. If we took the grief we feel for one suffering person and multiplied it by a million, our minds short-circuit \u2014 drowning in despair, fear, and helplessness. Instead, we undergo psychic numbing, an empathetic defense mechanism, which makes it harder for us to understand and act on big issues, like genocide, climate change, and of course, factory farming.<\/em><\/p>\n

Factory farming is really, really, really bad, and really, really, really big: it affects billions of land animals every year and trillions when we count aquatic animals too. I often see animal advocates posting these factory farming statistics, hoping it\u2019ll shock people into taking action. I get the instinct. But \u201cbillions of chickens are suffering right now\u201d plopped onto an Instagram carousel, with no story attached, may actually do the opposite… Humans are weird sometimes. We respond more positively when we can solve a greater chunk of a problem, regardless of the raw number of individuals we\u2019ve managed to help…<\/em><\/p>\n

If you tell people they can save 200 animals \u2014 a rounding error in the grand scheme of the world\u2019s farming systems \u2014 they\u2019ll just shrug. But if they can save 200 out of 250 animals, they\u2019ll be more likely to jump into action. Here\u2019s what it can look like in practical terms: some stats about local factory farms \u2014 \u201cthere are four factory farms in our district, so let\u2019s unite to convert them,\u201d feels a hell of a lot more doable than \u201cthere are 80 billion chickens suffering in the world, so eat some cauliflower hot wings.\u201d It\u2019s also one reason why I suspect the Ridglan farm rescue succeeded \u2014 because so few animals were involved, people felt they had a real chance of making a change for them and were thus more motivated to take action. We have a psychological predisposition for picking low-hanging fruit, so let\u2019s use that to our advantage…<\/em><\/p>\n

The knowledge gap about factory farming is very, very real. But simply telling people about how big the problem is won\u2019t move them to act. As tempting as it is to shout big, scary statistics into the void, we need to be smarter than that… seeing the problem shrunk down to feel more solvable (like in a local campaign). If we can\u2019t…, it\u2019s probably best to skip the statistics entirely and simply get people to care about a specific animal. You are probably familiar with the phrase \u201cone death is a tragedy, one million is a statistic.\u201d It\u2019s true. We are more likely to feel empathy for a single individual than for a group, including a group of animals. SOURCE<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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