The Psychology of Eating Animals

Abstract

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.

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Most people eat meat. They do so fully aware that it
comes from animals, at the cost of their lives. The rate at
which we eat animals is truly staggering. The average
American consumes approximately 120 kg (264 lb) of
meat annually (Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations, 2013), an appetite fed by the slaughter of
10 billion land animals (90% are chickens; Joy, 2010).
Globally, the average person consumes an estimated
48 kg (106 lb) of meat annually, requiring over 50 billion
land animals (Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations, 2013). We have eaten meat for millennia,
and our meat consumption predates human civilization
(Rose & Marshall, 1996).
The avidity of our meat consumption seems to imply
that we do not care about animals. This is clearly not cor-
rect. Most people find animal suffering emotionally dis-
turbing and morally repugnant (Allen et al., 2002; Plous,
1993). As our meat consumption grows, so too do our
expenditures on pets (American Pet Products Association,
2013) and the legal rights we afford animals (Tischler,
2012). This reflects the “meat paradox”: Most people care
about animals and do not want to see them harmed but
engage in a diet that requires them to be killed and, usu-
ally, to suffer (Herzog, 2010; Joy, 2010; Singer, 1975).
Despite this suffering and premature death conflicting
with peoples’ beliefs about how animals should be
treated, most people continue to eat meat. This paradox
may not apply to all forms of meat eating (e.g., the eating
of roadkill), may apply differently to meat producers, and
may not always be experienced subjectively as a conflict.
However, it highlights the moral dilemma involved in eat-
ing animals, a dilemma that all people resolve.
We will examine the psychological factors that sup-
port eating animals by focusing on characteristics of the
eaters (people), the eaten (animals), and the eating (the
act of consumption). We finish by discussing how psy-
chological resolution of the meat paradox can inform our
understanding of morality.
The Eaters
The surest way to eliminate moral tension associated
with eating animals is to not eat them. Vegetarians expe-
rience no conflict between their beliefs about animal
harm and their dietary practices. Studies of vegetarianism
have revealed that moral concern regarding the raising
and slaughter of animals is a principal motivation for
eliminating meat consumption (Amato & Partridge, 1989;
Ruby, 2012). In addition to motivating dietary change,
525781CDPXXX10.1177/0963721414525781Loughnan et al.Psychology of Eating Animals
research-article2014
Corresponding Author:
Steve Loughnan, School of Psychological Sciences, University of
Melbourne, Australia, VIC 3010
E-mail: sloughnan@unimelb.edu.au
The Psychology of Eating Animals
Steve Loughnan1, Brock Bastian2, and
Nick Haslam1
1University of Melbourne and 2University of Queensland
Abstract
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.
Keywords
animals, food, mind, morality, identity, emotion

2 Loughnan et al.
valuing animal welfare helps sustain and moralize vege-
tarian diets (Rozin, Markwith, & Stoess, 1997). Vegetarians
avoid the meat paradox through a behavioral choice
driven by moral concern for animals.
Nevertheless, vegetarians seldom exceed 10% of any
national population—most people consume meat. The
primary motivation omnivores report is that meat tastes
good (Lea & Worsley, 2003). Its appetitive qualities likely
reflect an evolved preference for foods high in fat, pro-
tein, and calories (Stanford, 1999). However, meat can
also elicit disgust, arguably because it poses a higher risk
of carrying dangerous pathogens than plant material
(Fessler & Navarrete, 2003). This oral disgust can also be
a moral disgust for some, providing an emotional base
for their moral avoidance of meat (Rozin et al., 1997).
People’s feelings toward meat are therefore ambivalent,
and the balance of pleasure and disgust helps determine
who eats meat and who rejects it (Rozin, 1996, 2004;
Rozin et al., 1997).
Some meat eaters find their consumption less morally
problematic than others. Two political ideologies under-
lying this individual difference are authoritarianism, the
belief that it is acceptable to control and aggress against
subordinates (Altemeyer, 1981), and social dominance
orientation (SDO), the endorsement of social hierarchy
and inequality (Sidanius & Pratto, 2001). Research has
found that omnivores are higher in both factors than veg-
etarians and that omnivores who value inequality and
hierarchy eat more red meat than those who do not
(Allen & Baines, 2002; Allen, Wilson, Ng, & Dunne, 2000).
People may also eat meat because it expresses their
identity. At a personal level, meat consumption is tied to
male identity, and its consumption makes some males
feel like “real men” (Rothgerber, 2013). The association is
so close that meat has become metaphorically “male”
(Rozin, Hormes, Faith, & Wansink, 2012), such that meat
eaters are perceived as more masculine than vegetarians
(Ruby & Heine, 2011). Rejecting meat can also help
express valued identities. A recent cross-cultural study of
vegetarianism found that Indian vegetarians value their
in-group and respect authority more than omnivorous
Indians do (Ruby, Heine, Kamble, Cheng, & Waddar,
2013). This finding indicates that the decision to reject
meat may be tied to a sense of belonging to a cultural
group and endorsement of group values.
In sum, the psychological characteristics of eaters may
influence their appetite for eating animals. People for
whom meat is a moral issue of animal welfare are inclined
to eschew it; people who accept or endorse domination
and inequality eat meat eagerly. Hedonic and identity-
related motives also play important roles.
The Eaten
Understanding how people think about animals—the
eaten—offers insights into the psychology of meat eating
that complement those based on understanding the char-
acteristics of eaters. In particular, an animal’s perceived
mind and its perceived similarity to humans are key fac-
tors influencing people’s willingness to eat it.
Eating animals is morally troublesome when animals
are perceived as worthy of moral concern. The more
moral concern we afford an entity, the more immoral it
becomes to harm it. People show considerable variability
in the extent to which they deem animals worthy of
moral concern (Bastian, Loughnan, Haslam, & Radke,
2012). This variability is partially determined by the
extent to which animals are perceived to be capable of
suffering. The idea that an animal’s pain sensitivity can
determine its moral worth dates back to Jeremy Bentham
(Bentham, 1789/1907), who argued that “the question is
not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they
suffer?” (“Limits Between Private Ethics and the Art of
Legislation,” note 122). Psychologists have corroborated
Bentham’s point by finding that the perceived capacity
for subjective experience—including the capacity for
pain—partially underlies the extent to which entities are
deemed worthy of moral concern (Waytz, Gray, Epley, &
Wegner, 2010). If perceived pain sensitivity partially
underlies moral concern, reducing animals’ capacity to
suffer might facilitate eating them.
Several recent studies have found this to be the case.
We (Bastian, Loughnan, et al., 2012) asked people to rate
the extent to which each of 32 animals possessed a set of
mental capacities and their willingness to eat each ani-
mal. We found a strong negative relationship between
attributed mind and edibility. Eating a more “mindful”
animal was also judged as more morally wrong and more
subjectively unpleasant. These findings hold across
diverse samples, with other research showing that
American, Canadian, Hong Kong Chinese, and Indian
consumers report less willingness to eat “mindful” ani-
mals and more disgust at the thought of doing so (Ruby
& Heine, 2012).
These findings may reflect that omnivores reduce ani-
mals’ minds to justify the fact that they are eaten.
Alternatively, omnivores may simply choose to eat “mind-
less” animals. To test whether animals are viewed as rela-
tively lacking minds because they are eaten, we asked
American participants to rate the extent to which a tree
kangaroo was capable of feeling pain and deserved
moral concern (Bratanova, Loughnan, & Bastian, 2011).
Participants were told either that the animal was consid-
ered food by locals in Papua New Guinea or simply that
it was an animal living there. Even though participants
had never eaten tree kangaroo and did not belong to the
group that did, tree kangaroos framed as “food animals”
were judged less capable of suffering and less deserving
of moral concern. Simply being categorized as food
undermines an animal’s perceived mind.
The perception of animals as relatively mindless may
also contribute to the belief that they are dissimilar to

Psychology of Eating Animals 3
humans. Plous (1993) showed that an animal’s perceived
capacity to experience pain was strongly related to its
perceived similarity to humans. People not only judge
humanlike animals as more pain sensitive but also expe-
rience greater autonomic arousal when watching them
being mistreated (Plous, 1993) and recommend harsher
sentences for people who abuse humanlike animals
(Allen et al., 2002). By implication, seeing an animal as
dissimilar should dampen our emotional reactions to its
suffering. Indeed, people who see animals as dissimilar
to humans attribute them lesser minds and consequently
see them as less worthy of moral concern (Bastian,
Costello, Loughnan, & Hodson, 2012). This decreased
moral concern may be reflected in an increased willing-
ness to allow animals to be harmed (e.g., for meat or for
entertainment; Bastian, Costello, et al., 2012).
Attributing animals lesser minds and reducing their
perceived capacity to suffer is a powerful means of
resolving the meat paradox. Another, hitherto unexam-
ined, possibility is that people might accept that animals
can suffer but deny that animals suffer when humanely
killed. By limiting animals’ capacity to suffer, people can
judge them less worthy of moral concern. Interestingly,
reducing the perceived minds of meat animals occurs
when people are not seeking to justify their own con-
sumption—for example, when they categorize an animal
as food (Bratanova et al., 2011) or when they contem-
plate the differences between humans and animals
(Bastian, Costello, et al., 2012). These findings indicate
that the psychological processes that support eating ani-
mals cannot be reduced to self-serving, motivated rea-
sons; how we construe animals and the human/animal
boundary is critical to our willingness to eat them. In
short, the way animals are perceived is intimately tied to
eating meat.
The Eating
Personal attributes and perceptions of animals are rela-
tively independent of the act of eating. However, it is pre-
cisely in this moment—when a person is eating or
intending to eat—that we would expect the meat paradox
to require urgent resolution. Research has begun to exam-
ine the dynamic processes that facilitate meat eating.
In one study, we (Loughnan, Haslam, & Bastian, 2010)
randomly assigned participants to consume either beef or
nuts and, subsequently, to report their moral concern for
animals and rate a cow’s capacity to suffer. We found that
participants who had recently consumed beef, but not
nuts, restricted their moral concern for animals and rated
the cow as less capable of suffering. This response may
have served to alleviate any post hoc negative feelings
participants experienced as a result of eating meat. A
similar emotion-regulation process may occur in anticipa-
tion of eating meat. In another study, participants came
to the laboratory and were led to expect to sample meat
or fruit (Bastian, Loughnan, et al., 2012). Participants who
anticipated meat consumption attributed cows and lambs
lesser minds, consistent with previous research showing
that both situational and chronic meat consumption low-
ers mind attribution (Bilewicz, Imhoff, & Drogosz, 2011;
Loughnan et al., 2010). Importantly, people in the meat
condition who ascribed diminished mentality to the ani-
mals reported less negative emotional arousal when
anticipating meat consumption. This finding suggests that
people can alleviate unpleasant feelings aroused by meat
consumption by attributing animals lesser minds.
The tension omnivores experience when reminded
that their behavior may not match their beliefs and val-
ues, and the resolution of this tension by changing those
beliefs, fits with the theory of cognitive dissonance
(Harmon-Jones & Mills, 1999). Whereas some people
(e.g., vegetarians) reduce this negative state by changing
their actions, others may do so by strategically changing
their beliefs, specifically about animals’ minds, suffering,
and moral standing. Dissonance theory could help
explain why the act of eating, which makes the meat
paradox highly salient, motivates these psychological
changes.
Conclusions
Eating animals has been commonplace for millennia.
Nevertheless, it can generate a significant tension between
people’s aversion to animal harm and their desire for
meat. We have examined some factors that enable people
to negotiate this paradox. Meat eaters tend to care less
about animal welfare, to value masculinity, and to accept
social hierarchy and inequality. They tend to reduce mind
attribution to animals and see them as dissimilar to
humans. In preparation for eating meat, and after it, they
attribute diminished mental capacities to animals. These
factors combine to reduce animals’ moral standing, mak-
ing their passage from farm to fork less troubling. There
are a number of pathways through which people may
adjust their perceptions of animals in ways that appear
more consistent with their consumption of them. One
putative pathway is that people change their perceptions
to reduce negative affect associated with the act of meat
eating. Still, no work has directly captured these negative
affective reactions to the tension between concern for
animal suffering and consumption of animals. Future
research could employ physiological or neuroimaging
measures of affective reactions (cf. Plous, 1993) that
would allow researchers to capture rapid, nonconscious,
or disavowed emotions associated with meat.
Although we believe that the psychology of eating ani-
mals is a worthy topic in its own right, it can also be
viewed as an extended case study on human morality.
Psychological approaches to understanding morality

4 Loughnan et al.
have typically focused on domain-general cognitive and
emotional processes (e.g., Greene, 2007; Haidt, 2001)
and broad, encompassing moral categories (e.g., Haidt &
Joseph, 2007) or dimensions (e.g., Gray, Young, & Waytz,
2012; Janoff-Bulman, Sheikh, & Hepp, 2009; for a discus-
sion, see Rozin, 2006). By examining a single moral behav-
ior, we can illuminate how emotions (pleasure, disgust,
guilt), cognitions (categorization, attribution, justification),
and personality characteristics (values, beliefs, identities)
combine when people face everyday moral problems.
In doing so, researchers have shown how emotion
regulation, mind perception, and moral judgment are inti-
mately connected. Adopting a similar approach to under-
standing other domains of everyday morality—narrow in
its focus but deep in its attention to the complexity of the
phenomenon—may prove equally fruitful.
In 1996, Paul Rozin made an appeal in this journal for
psychologists to take meat eating seriously (Rozin, 1996).
The field has heeded his call and responded by laying
bare many of the psychological factors at play when peo-
ple eat meat. We now have a clearer idea about who eats
animals, what they think of animals, and how their psy-
chology changes when they engage in meat eating. In
doing so, we have begun to unearth the psychological
roots of an ancient, widespread, and increasingly contro-
versial behavior.
Recommended Reading
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Rozin, P. (1996). (See References). A review of meat and moral-
ity.
Ruby, M (2012). (See References). A review of vegetarianism.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no conflicts of interest with respect to the
authorship or the publication of this article.
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