Cognitive dissonance, the psychological discomfort experienced when holding conflicting beliefs or behaviors, is a well-documented phenomenon, especially in the context of dietary choices. This article delves into a study that explores the cognitive dissonance experienced by consumers of fish, dairy, and eggs, examining the psychological strategies they employ to mitigate the moral conflict associated with their dietary habits. Conducted by Ioannidou, Lesk, Stewart-Knox, and Francis and summarized by Aro Roseman, the study highlights the ethical dilemmas faced by individuals who care about animal welfare yet continue to consume animal products.
The consumption of animal products is fraught with ethical concerns due to the suffering and death inflicted on sentient animals, alongside significant environmental and health repercussions. For those who are conscious of animal welfare, this often results in a moral conflict. While some resolve this conflict by adopting a vegan lifestyle, many others continue their dietary habits and employ various psychological strategies to alleviate their moral discomfort.
Previous research has primarily focused on cognitive dissonance related to meat consumption, often overlooking other animal products like dairy, eggs, and fish. This study aims to fill that gap by investigating how different dietary groups—omnivores, flexitarians, pescatarians, vegetarians, and vegans—navigate their moral conflicts not only with meat but also with dairy, eggs, and fish. Using a comprehensive questionnaire distributed via social media, the study gathered responses from 720 adults, providing a diverse sample to analyze.
The study identifies five key strategies used to reduce moral conflict: denial of animals’ mental capacities, justification of animal product consumption, dissociation of animal products from the animals themselves, avoidance of information that might heighten moral conflict, and dichotomization of animals into edible and inedible categories. The findings reveal intriguing patterns in how different dietary groups employ these strategies, shedding light on the complex psychological mechanisms at play in dietary choices involving animal products.
Summary By: Aro Roseman | Original Study By: Ioannidou, M., Lesk, V., Stewart-Knox, B., & Francis, K. B. (2023) | Published: July 3, 2024
This study evaluates the psychological strategies that consumers of fish, dairy, and eggs use to reduce the moral conflict associated with the consumption of those products.
Consuming animal products raises important ethical issues because of the suffering and death caused to sentient animals to obtain these products, not to mention the serious environmental and health problems that may come from their production and consumption. For people who care about about animals and don’t want them to suffer or be killed unnecessarily, this consumption can create a moral conflict.
A small proportion of people who feel this conflict — referred to in the literature as a state of cognitive dissonance — simply stop eating animal products and become vegan. This immediately resolves their moral conflict between caring about animals on the one hand and eating them on the other. However, a significantly larger proportion of the population doesn’t change their behavior, and instead use other strategies to reduce the moral discomfort they feel from this situation.
Some studies have examined the psychological strategies used to cope with cognitive dissonance, but they tend to focus on meat and don’t usually take into account the consumption of dairy, eggs, and fish. In this study, the authors set out to learn more about how people from different categories — omnivores, flexitarians, pescatarians, vegetarians, and vegans — employ strategies to avoid moral conflict, taking into account meat, but also dairy, eggs, and fish.
The authors created a questionnaire and distributed it through social media. The questionnaire asked about strategies to reduce moral conflict, as well as gathering certain demographic characteristics. 720 adults responded and were divided into the five diets listed above. Flexitarians were the least represented, with 63 respondents, while vegans were the most represented, with 203 respondents.
Five strategies were examined and measured:
- Denying that animals have significant mental capacities, and that they can feel pain, emotions, and suffer from their exploitation.
- Justifying the consumption of animal products with beliefs such as meat is necessary for good health, that it’s natural to eat it, or that we have always done so and therefore it’s normal to continue.
- Dissociating animal products from the animal, such as seeing a steak instead of a dead animal.
- Avoiding any information that might increase the moral conflict, such as science on the sentience of exploited animals or investigations into the suffering they endure on farms.
- Dichotomizing animals between edible and inedible, so that the former is considered less important than the latter. In this way, people can love certain animals and even defend their well-being, while turning a blind eye to the fate of others.
For these five strategies, the results showed that for meat consumption, all groups except vegans tended to use denial, while omnivores used justification far more than all other groups. Interestingly, all groups used avoidance in relatively equal proportions, and all groups except vegans used dichotomization in higher proportions.
For egg and dairy consumption, all groups who eat eggs and dairy employed denial and justification. In this case, pescetarians and vegetarians also used dissociation more than vegans. Meanwhile, vegans, vegetarians and pescetarians used avoidance.
Finally, for fish consumption, the study found that omnivores employed denial, and omnivores and pescatarians used justification to make sense of their diets.
Overall, these results show — perhaps predictably — that those who consume a broad range of animal products use more strategies to reduce the associated moral conflict than those who don’t. However, one strategy was used less often by omnivores across the different conditions: avoidance. The authors hypothesize that most people, whether they share responsibility through their diet or not, don’t like to be exposed to information that reminds them that animals are being abused and killed. For those who eat meat, it may increase their moral conflict. For others, it may simply make them feel sad or angry.
It’s worth noting that many of these psychological strategies are based on unfounded beliefs that contradict the latest scientific evidence. This is the case, for example, with the justification that humans need to eat animal products to be healthy, or the denial of the cognitive abilities of farm animals. Others are based on cognitive biases that contradict reality, as in the case of dissociating the steak from the dead animal, or arbitrarily categorizing certain animals as edible and others as not. All of these strategies, except avoidance, can be countered by education, a regular supply of evidence, and logical reasoning. By continuing to do so, as many animal advocates are already doing, animal product consumers will find it increasingly difficult to rely on these strategies, and we may see further shifts in dietary trends.
Notice: This content was initially published on Faunalytics.org and may not necessarily reflect the views of the Humane Foundation.
