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Ideological resistance to veg*n advocacy: An identity-based motivational account

Animal-based diets in Western countries are increasingly regarded as unsustainable because of their impact on human health, environmental and animal welfare. Promoting shifts toward more plant-based diets seems an effective way to avoid these harms in practice. Nevertheless, claims against the consu...

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Autores principales: De Groeve, Ben, Bleys, Brent, Hudders, Liselot
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9749860/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36533047
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.996250
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author De Groeve, Ben
Bleys, Brent
Hudders, Liselot
author_facet De Groeve, Ben
Bleys, Brent
Hudders, Liselot
author_sort De Groeve, Ben
collection PubMed
description Animal-based diets in Western countries are increasingly regarded as unsustainable because of their impact on human health, environmental and animal welfare. Promoting shifts toward more plant-based diets seems an effective way to avoid these harms in practice. Nevertheless, claims against the consumption of animal products contradict the ideology of the omnivorous majority known as carnism. Carnism supports animal-product consumption as a cherished social habit that is harmless and unavoidable and invalidates minorities with plant-based diets: vegetarians and vegans (veg*ns). In this theoretical review, we integrate socio-psychological and empirical literature to provide an identity-based motivational account of ideological resistance to veg*n advocacy. Advocates who argue against the consumption of animal products often make claims that it is harmful, and avoidable by making dietary changes toward veg*n diets. In response, omnivores are likely to experience a simultaneous threat to their moral identity and their identity as consumer of animal products, which may arouse motivations to rationalize animal-product consumption and to obscure harms. If omnivores engage in such motivated reasoning and motivated ignorance, this may also inform negative stereotyping and stigmatization of veg*n advocates. These “pro-carnist” and “counter-veg*n” defenses can be linked with various personal and social motivations to eat animal products (e.g., meat attachment, gender, speciesism) and reinforce commitment to and ambivalence about eating animal products. This does not mean, however, that veg*n advocates cannot exert any influence. An apparent resistance may mask indirect and private acceptance of advocates’ claims, priming commitment to change behavior toward veg*n diets often at a later point in time. Based on our theoretical account, we provide directions for future research.
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spelling pubmed-97498602022-12-15 Ideological resistance to veg*n advocacy: An identity-based motivational account De Groeve, Ben Bleys, Brent Hudders, Liselot Front Psychol Psychology Animal-based diets in Western countries are increasingly regarded as unsustainable because of their impact on human health, environmental and animal welfare. Promoting shifts toward more plant-based diets seems an effective way to avoid these harms in practice. Nevertheless, claims against the consumption of animal products contradict the ideology of the omnivorous majority known as carnism. Carnism supports animal-product consumption as a cherished social habit that is harmless and unavoidable and invalidates minorities with plant-based diets: vegetarians and vegans (veg*ns). In this theoretical review, we integrate socio-psychological and empirical literature to provide an identity-based motivational account of ideological resistance to veg*n advocacy. Advocates who argue against the consumption of animal products often make claims that it is harmful, and avoidable by making dietary changes toward veg*n diets. In response, omnivores are likely to experience a simultaneous threat to their moral identity and their identity as consumer of animal products, which may arouse motivations to rationalize animal-product consumption and to obscure harms. If omnivores engage in such motivated reasoning and motivated ignorance, this may also inform negative stereotyping and stigmatization of veg*n advocates. These “pro-carnist” and “counter-veg*n” defenses can be linked with various personal and social motivations to eat animal products (e.g., meat attachment, gender, speciesism) and reinforce commitment to and ambivalence about eating animal products. This does not mean, however, that veg*n advocates cannot exert any influence. An apparent resistance may mask indirect and private acceptance of advocates’ claims, priming commitment to change behavior toward veg*n diets often at a later point in time. Based on our theoretical account, we provide directions for future research. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-11-30 /pmc/articles/PMC9749860/ /pubmed/36533047 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.996250 Text en Copyright © 2022 De Groeve, Bleys and Hudders. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
De Groeve, Ben
Bleys, Brent
Hudders, Liselot
Ideological resistance to veg*n advocacy: An identity-based motivational account
title Ideological resistance to veg*n advocacy: An identity-based motivational account
title_full Ideological resistance to veg*n advocacy: An identity-based motivational account
title_fullStr Ideological resistance to veg*n advocacy: An identity-based motivational account
title_full_unstemmed Ideological resistance to veg*n advocacy: An identity-based motivational account
title_short Ideological resistance to veg*n advocacy: An identity-based motivational account
title_sort ideological resistance to veg*n advocacy: an identity-based motivational account
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9749860/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36533047
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.996250
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