Being a meat-eater could mean you're a snob, or even a racist, according to new research.

Meat-eaters may say they only eat animal products because they taste good, but psychologists found that the majority also believe they have the right to eat meat.

The scientists revealed that this attitude could lead to meat-eaters developing prejudices against people from a different social class over time.

Does eating meat make you prejudiced? Psychologists say it could make you think you're better than other groups of people after a study into the psychology of eating meat

The findings - from the first ever international survey on the psychology of eating meat were published in the specialist journal Appetite yesterday.

Meat-eaters don't just eat meat because of the taste but because they believe that eating meat is 'justified', according to the surveys of 1,000 people by the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and the University of Massachusetts in Boston.

Meat-eaters believe 'human beings naturally have a position of dominance over animals', the research found.

The psychologists found that believing in the right to eat meat can mean that you believe in a hierarchical system where some people are better than others, which could lead to you developing prejudices against other people.

However, the scientists did say that eating meat does not make you 'automatically more likely to exhibit prejudice towards other groups of people'.

The study was looking into carnism, which is the ideology behind finding it acceptable to eat some meats but not others

Dr. Tamara Pfeiler of JGU's Institute of Psychology, one of the primary authors of the study, said: 'Carnistic beliefs also seem to be associated with an attitude that approves of dominance within social structures and could thus encourage the development of prejudices towards certain social categories.

'However, this does not mean that meat-eating people are automatically more likely to exhibit prejudice towards other groups of people.'

The scientists were putting the theory of 'carnism' to the test with the study, which says that there is a belief system that preconditions people to eat certain animals and not others, such as pets.

'We came to the conclusion that, just as in the case of vegetarianism and veganism, there is an underlying set of beliefs underpinning the eating of meat,' said Dr Pfeiler.

The researchers said they are planning to carry out further studies to establish the links between eating meat, accepting that some people are better than others and exhibiting prejudice.