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The 'meat paradox': Why people can love animals — and eat them
The answer lies in the psychology behind the way we perceive contradictory information: a manifestation of cognitive dissonance called the 'meat paradox'
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Canadians prefer pepperoni on their pizza. And though one in four considered cutting information technology during COVID-xix, beef is still a staple.
If yous eat meat — as more than than 90 per cent of Canadians do — chances are good, it comes from manufactory farms. Each year, eighty billion animals are slaughtered for meat globally, more xc per cent of which are estimated to live in intensive farming systems.
The alternative — meat bearing labels such equally "complimentary-range," "grass-fed" and "certified humane" — is very much the minority. Simply those $7.99 rotisserie birds come at a cost to animate being welfare and the environment.
According to Our Earth in Data, livestock product takes a significant environmental price. Beefiness (meat and dairy), lamb and mutton emit the most greenhouse gas per kilogram than any other nutrient. And when it comes to producing the beefiness that leads the pack in emissions, a study published in the periodical Animal Welfare suggests that thirteen.six per cent of bulls are inadequately stunned.
Many of the same people who regularly put meat on their plates are also likely to place as animal lovers — sharing their homes with pets they adore, devouring cute animal videos on social media and supporting stricter food labelling around beast welfare.
A 2017 study published in the journal Gild & Animals even suggests that people empathize more with dogs than they do other adults.
And then, how do people reconcile their affection for animals with their want to eat them in the grade of meat?
The answer lies in the psychology behind the way we perceive contradictory information: a manifestation of cerebral noise (the discomfort of our beliefs clashing with new information) called the "meat paradox."
In a start-of-its-kind literature review published in the Social Psychological Bulletin, U.K. researchers from the Societies Enquiry Hub at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) and Nottingham Trent University investigated the meat paradox and identified its two main psychological processes: triggers, such as reminding people of meat's animal origin; and restorative strategies including detachment from the result.
"One of the large triggers of this meat paradox and of this cerebral dissonance, as nosotros call information technology — this feeling of discomfort — is only hearing information virtually animals," says ARU doctoral researcher Sarah Gradidge, atomic number 82 author of the literature review.
"And so simply merely, for case, saying to somebody that their meat comes from an animate being could be a trigger of this discomfort and can make them feel very uncomfortable and potentially very threatened."
The researchers institute that people apply dissimilar strategies to deal with the meat paradox and alleviate their discomfort. Dissimilar people — intersecting with age, civilization, dietary preferences, gender, occupation or religion — use different strategies, adds Gradidge, though figuring out why requires future research.
But just saying to somebody that their meat comes from an animal could exist a trigger of this discomfort and tin make them feel very uncomfortable and potentially very threatened.
Some tend to use indirect strategies, the nigh common of which is avoidance: mental (eastward.m., avoiding thinking nigh meat as creature flesh) or physical (e.g., steering clear of slaughterhouse footage).
"Plain, if you're eating meat, you lot might not want to think about where that meat has come from. Then very simply, you might just be avoiding any thoughts that this meat has come from an creature," says Gradidge.
Others tend to use more than direct strategies to reduce dissonance by justifying their meat consumption. Nigh commonly: "denying positive traits to animals," the 4Ns — defending meat eating as "natural," "necessary," "dainty" and "normal" — and "denial of adverse consequences."
"Instead of not thinking about it, they might actually exist actively denying certain information. They may be denying that meat consumption causes damage to animals. They may be denying that animals fifty-fifty feel pain," Gradidge explains.
"And that alleviates guilt because obviously, if animals can't feel pain, then meat consumption isn't going to hurt them. Information technology essentially renders meat consumption completely harmless considering information technology doesn't crusade whatsoever pain."
Vegaphobia — stigma against vegans and vegetarians — can also be a strategy for dealing with the meat paradox, she adds. Sociologists Matthew Cole and Karen Morgan first identified the phenomenon in 2011 in their examination of the British media's "derogatory" portrayal of vegans.
Nearly people want to human activity in a moral way, says Gradidge. If someone were to tell them that their meat eating is causing impairment, for instance, it could make them feel threatened and uncomfortable.
Instead of dealing with those emotions of discomfort, reflecting on and perhaps changing their own behaviour — such as reducing meat consumption — they may deflect the threat towards vegans and vegetarians. "I suppose, most similar shooting the messenger."
In "Information technology ain't easy eating greens," a 2015 report published in the journal Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, researchers Cara C. MacInnis and Gordon Hodson observed that only people with an addiction are viewed more negatively than vegans and vegetarians.
"Unlike other forms of bias (e.one thousand., racism, sexism), negativity toward vegetarians and vegans is not widely considered a societal problem; rather, (it) is commonplace and largely accepted," the Guardian reports of their conclusions.
Demonstrating this stigma — a phenomenon called exercise-gooder derogation — doesn't simply apply to vegans and vegetarians, Gradidge highlights, only people dealing with other moral problems as well (east.g., resentment of others' generosity).
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The fashion people communicate information about the consequences of meat eating matters, highlights Gradidge.
An August 2021 study published in the journal PLOS Ane suggests that blaming people — intentionally or not — for their role in unethical behaviour "leads to increased defensiveness and may be counterproductive."
Alleviating them of whatever wrongdoing, however, may make them more receptive to data and potential change.
"It'south really, really important that when nosotros're talking near these issues, nosotros're doing information technology in a way that is absolving. So, we're doing it in a way that'due south non blaming meat eaters and saying, 'It'south all your error, you're a bad person,' etc.," says Gradidge.
"We want to effort to do it in a way that's compassionate, and in a mode that'south relatable to them. We actually want to avoid these 'us versus them' politics. Nosotros don't want to be presenting it as us, the animal welfare advocates, against them, the meat eaters. Nosotros really desire to be thinking about how we can relate and attempt to bridge the gap."
Effective communication requires finding the "sweet spot of cognitive dissonance," she adds. Behavioural change requires some discomfort — if people don't feel any, they'll keep doing what they've always washed.
If people experience too threatened, all the same, they tend to switch off and avert the event. A minority of people will even practice the contrary in an urge to insubordinate (a psychological result called reactance). If the message is to subtract meat consumption, they will increase it due to a perceived loss of freedom.
Raising awareness nearly animal welfare and ecology bug related to meat consumption is necessary, says Gradidge, but needs to exist done in a manner that will encourage people to reflect — not disengage.
"It raises some major issues when we're talking nearly these issues, because we demand to talk about them. But and so we have to really navigate this cognitive dissonance and this potential discomfort equally well," she adds.
"It's not about trying to strength people to alter their behaviour. It'southward nearly trying to become people to reflect on their meat consumption themselves and to then make the decision themselves…. Merely apparently if nosotros are presenting it in a manner that'south threatening, and then people aren't going to reflect at all. They're only going to ignore the data sadly."
Source: https://nationalpost.com/life/food/the-meat-paradox-why-people-can-love-animals-and-eat-them