Most people both eat animals and care about animals. Research has begun to examine the psychological processes that allow people to negotiate this “meat paradox.” To understand the psychology of eating animals, we examine characteristics of the eaters (people), the eaten (animals), and the eating (the behavior). People who value masculinity, enjoy meat and do not see it as a moral issue, and find dominance and inequality acceptable are most likely to consume animals. Perceiving animals as highly dissimilar to humans and as lacking mental attributes, such as the capacity for pain, also supports meat-eating. In addition to these beliefs, values, and perceptions, the act of eating meat triggers psychological processes that regulate negative emotions associated with eating animals. We conclude by discussing the implications of this research for understanding the psychology of morality.

Recommended Reading

A review of meat and morality

An experimental study of meat eating and emotion

References

Allen, M., Baines, S. ( 2002 ). Manipulating the symbolic meaning of meat to encourage greater acceptance of fruits and vegetables and less proclivity for red and white meats . Appetite, 38, 118 – 130 .

Google Scholar Crossref | Medline

Allen, M., Hunstone, M., Waerstad, J., Foy, E., Hobbins, T., Wikner, B., Wirrel, J. ( 2002 ). Human-to-animal similarity and participant mood influence punishment recommendations for animal abusers . Society & Animals, 10, 267 – 284 .

Google Scholar Crossref

Allen, M., Wilson, M., Ng, S., Dunne, M. ( 2000 ). Values and beliefs of vegetarians and omnivores . Journal of Social Psychology, 140, 405 – 422 .

Google Scholar Crossref | Medline

Altemeyer, B. ( 1981 ). Right-wing authoritarianism. Winnipeg, Canada : University of Manitoba Press .

Google Scholar

Amato, P., Partridge, S. ( 1989 ). The new vegetarians: Promoting health and protecting life. New York, NY : Plenum Press .

Google Scholar Crossref

American Pet Products Association . ( 2013 ). U.S. pet industry spending figures and future outlook. Retrieved from http://www.americanpetproducts.org/press_industrytrends.asp

Google Scholar

Bastian, B., Costello, K., Loughnan, S., Hodson, G. ( 2012 ). When closing the human-animal divide expands moral concern: The importance of framing . Social Psychological and Personality Science, 36, 100 – 107 .

Google Scholar

Bastian, B., Loughnan, S., Haslam, N., Radke, H. ( 2012 ). Don’t mind meat? The denial of mind to animals used for human consumption . Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38, 247 – 256 .

Google Scholar SAGE Journals | ISI

Bentham, J. ( 1907 ). An introduction to the principles of morals and legislation. Oxford, England : Clarendon Press . (Original work published 1789). Retrieved from http://www.econlib.org/library/Bentham/bnthPMLCover.html

Google Scholar

Bilewicz, M., Imhoff, R., Drogosz, M. ( 2011 ). The humanity of what we eat: Conceptions of human uniqueness among vegetarians and omnivores . European Journal of Social Psychology, 41, 201 – 209 .

Google Scholar Crossref | ISI

Bratanova, B., Loughnan, S., Bastian, B. ( 2011 ). The effect of categorization as food on the perceived moral standing of animals . Appetite, 57, 193 – 196 .

Google Scholar Crossref | Medline | ISI

Fessler, D., Navarrete, C. ( 2003 ). Meat is good to taboo: Dietary proscriptions as a product of the interaction of psychological mechanisms and social processes . Journal of Cognition and Culture, 3, 1 – 40 .

Google Scholar Crossref

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations . ( 2013 ). FAOSTAT food supply—livestock and fish primary equivalent per capita [Data set]. Retrieved from http://faostat3.fao.org/faostat-gateway/go/to/download/C/CL/E

Google Scholar

Gray, K., Young, L., Waytz, A. ( 2012 ). Mind perception is the essence of morality . Psychological Inquiry, 23, 101 – 124 .

Google Scholar Crossref | Medline | ISI

Greene, J. ( 2007 ). Why are VMPFC patients more utilitarian? A dual-process theory of moral judgment explains . Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11, 322 – 323 .

Google Scholar Crossref | Medline | ISI

Haidt, J. ( 2001 ). The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment . Psychological Review, 108, 814 – 834 .

Google Scholar Crossref | Medline | ISI

Haidt, J., Joseph, C. ( 2007 ). The moral mind: How five sets of innate intuitions guide the development of many culture-specific virtues, and perhaps even modules . In Carruthers, P., Laurence, S., Stich, S. (Eds.), The innate mind (Vol. 3, pp. 367 – 391 ). New York, NY : Oxford University Press .

Google Scholar

Harmon-Jones, E., Mills, J. ( 1999 ). Cognitive dissonance: Progress on a pivotal theory in social psychology. Washington, DC : American Psychological Association .

Google Scholar Crossref

Herzog, H. ( 2010 ). Some we love, some we hate, some we eat: Why it’s so hard to think straight about animals. New York, NY : Harper Collins .

Google Scholar

Janoff-Bulman, R., Sheikh, S., Hepp, S. ( 2009 ). Proscriptive versus prescriptive morality: Two faces of moral regulation . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96, 521 – 537 .

Google Scholar Crossref | Medline | ISI

Joy, M. ( 2010 ). Why we love dogs, eat pigs, and wear cows: An introduction to carnism. San Francisco, CA : Conari Press .

Google Scholar

Lea, E., Worsley, A. ( 2003 ). Benefits and barriers to the consumption of a vegetarian diet in Australia . Appetite, 6, 127 – 136 .

Google Scholar

Loughnan, S., Haslam, N., Bastian, B. ( 2010 ). The role of meat consumption in the denial of mind and moral status to meat animals . Appetite, 55, 156 – 159 .

Google Scholar Crossref | Medline

Plous, S. ( 1993 ). Psychological mechanisms in the human use of animals . Journal of Social Issues, 49, 11 – 52 .

Google Scholar Crossref | Medline | ISI

Rose, L., Marshall, F. ( 1996 ). Meat eating, hominid sociality, and home bases revisited . Current Anthropology, 37, 307 – 338 .

Google Scholar Crossref | ISI

Rothgerber, H. ( 2013 ). Real men don’t eat (vegetable) quiche: Masculinity and the justification of meat consumption . Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 14, 363 – 375 .

Google Scholar Crossref | ISI

Rozin, P. ( 1996 ). Towards a psychology of food and eating: From motivation to module to model to marker, morality, meaning, and metaphor . Current Directions in Psychological Science, 5, 18 – 24 .

Google Scholar SAGE Journals | ISI

Rozin, P. ( 2004 ). Meat . In Katz, S. (Ed.), Encyclopedia of food (pp. 666 – 671 ). New York, NY : Scribner .

Google Scholar

Rozin, P. ( 2006 ). Domain denigration and process preference in academic psychology . Perspectives on Psychological Science, 1, 365 – 376 .

Google Scholar SAGE Journals | ISI

Rozin, P., Hormes, J., Faith, M., Wansink, B. ( 2012 ). Is meat male? A quantitative multimethod framework to establish metaphoric relationships . Journal of Consumer Research, 39, 629 – 643 .

Google Scholar Crossref | ISI

Rozin, P., Markwith, M., Stoess, C. ( 1997 ). Moralization and becoming a vegetarian: The transformation of preferences into values and the recruitment of disgust . Psychological Science, 8, 67 – 73 .

Google Scholar SAGE Journals | ISI

Ruby, M. ( 2012 ). Vegetarianism: A blossoming field of study . Appetite, 58, 141 – 150 .

Google Scholar Crossref | Medline | ISI

Ruby, M., Heine, S. ( 2011 ). Meat, morals, and masculinity . Appetite, 56, 447 – 450 .

Google Scholar Crossref | Medline | ISI

Ruby, M., Heine, S. ( 2012 ). Too close to home. Factors predicting meat avoidance . Appetite, 59, 47 – 52 .

Google Scholar Crossref | Medline

Ruby, M., Heine, S., Kamble, S., Cheng, T., Waddar, M. ( 2013 ). Compassion and contamination: Cultural differences in vegetarianism . Appetite, 71, 340 – 348 .

Google Scholar Crossref | Medline

Sidanius, J., Pratto, F. ( 2001 ). Social dominance: An intergroup theory of social hierarchy and oppression. Cambridge, England : Cambridge University Press .

Google Scholar

Singer, P. ( 1975 ). Animal liberation: Towards an end to man’s inhumanity to animals. New York, NY : HarperCollins .

Google Scholar

Stanford, C. ( 1999 ). The hunting apes: Meat eating and the origins of human behavior. Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press .

Google Scholar

Tischler, J. ( 2012 ). A brief history of animal law, part II (1985–2011) . Stanford Journal of Animal Law and Policy, 27, 57 – 59 .

Google Scholar