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“If I became a vegan, my family and friends would hate me:” Anticipating vegan stigma as a barrier to plant-based diets
Abstract
A significant body of literature has developed which examines why meat consumption continues to be so important to Americans. Our paper contributes to this literature by examining how fear of stigmatization may be a barrier to avoiding meat consumption. This is an important subject because there is evidence that suggests that individuals who avoid meat, especially vegans, are stigmatized for disrupting social conventions related to food. In this paper, we present data from series of focus groups in which vegan, vegetarian, and omnivorous college students discussed perceptions of vegans and veganism. Our analysis shows that non-vegans anticipate stigma associated with eating like vegans. We identify two strategies by which non-vegans attempt to avoid this stigma: social and behavioral distancing. These results suggest that vegan stigma is a barrier that inhibits dietary shifts toward a plant-based diet. Our results are important because they can be used to improve the efficacy of public health initiatives focused on encouraging plant-based diet adoption and meat consumption reduction.
... Logo, percebe-se que a alimentação participa do processo social, podendo trazer, além da definição de identidade e estilo de vida, aspectos simbólicos e significado social para o ato de comer. Ou seja, paralelamente a um autoencontro, os indivíduos buscam identificar-se em grupos e/ou subgrupos sociais aos quais possam transmitir e receber o sentimento de pertencimento (Poulain, 2006;Abonizio;Azevedo, 2017;Perrota, 2017;Cavalheiro, Verdu & Amarante, 2018;Markowski & Roxburgh, 2019;Nguyem et al., 2020). Exemplificando, podem-se citar além dos veganos, os vegetarianos, crudívoros iii , judeus (alimentação kosher iv ), entre diversas outras variações dietéticas que podem ser encontradas em diferentes religiões, organizações e meios sociais de forma geral. ...
... Sobre o sentimento de pertencimento, estudos comprovam que o estigma social originado pelas práticas vegana e vegetariana são capazes de interferir, ou mesmo modificar, relações sociais íntimas nos âmbitos familiar, de amigos e até mesmo matrimonial (Abonizio, 2016;Altoé, Menotti & Azevedo, 2019;Markowski & Roxburgh, 2019;Nguyem et al., 2020;Souza et al., 2020). Isto se dá, principalmente, como consequência de seus hábitos alimentares junto aos seus métodos e escolhas de consumo. ...
... Para estes indivíduos, a formação de grupos sociais é fundamental, pois assim, podem compartilhar a mesa sem maiores preocupações sobre o que será servido. Além disso, estarão livres de uma possível demanda de explicações pessoais de seus pratos; constantes questionamentos sobre motivações para tais escolhas (Abonizio, 2016;Markowski & Roxburgh, 2019;Nguyem et al., 2020;Souza et al., 2020); enquanto seu único desejo é a comensalidade, isto é, uma refeição apetitosa e a acolhida natural a qualquer hóspede durante seus deslocamentos e viagens (Coelho-Costa, 2015; Faltin & Gimenez-Minasse, 2019). ...
O artigo tem como objetivo compreender a discussão sobre a importância da comensalidade para os indivíduos que possuem restrições alimentares em suas experiências de viagens. Aspecto vital da hospitalidade, a comensalidade se configura como elemento chave para o bem-estar e o sentimento de familiaridade entre os viajantes e os anfitriões. Para efeito de contextualização do cenário proposto, o estudo tem como foco os veganos, indivíduos que recusam o consumo de qualquer produto de origem animal, além de terem como ideologia a libertação animal. A metodologia envolveu uma pesquisa exploratória sobre os temas comensalidade e veganismo, somada a uma revisão sistemática de literatura nas bases de dados Web of Science, Publicações de Turismo, Redalyc e Google Acadêmico. O resultado da análise evidenciou a necessidade de aprofundamento da discussão teórica sobre restrições alimentares durante as viagens sob a perspectiva da comensalidade e da teoria da hospitalidade.
... Furthermore, social support and networks are crucial for sustaining a vegan or vegetarian diet (Haverstock and Forgays, 2012;Markowski and Roxburgh, 2019;Godin, 2023;Sirieix et al., 2023;Williams et al., 2023). Stigmatization and discrimination are hindering factors in both sustaining (Salehi et al., 2020) and transitioning to a plant-based diet (Markowski and Roxburgh, 2019). ...
... Furthermore, social support and networks are crucial for sustaining a vegan or vegetarian diet (Haverstock and Forgays, 2012;Markowski and Roxburgh, 2019;Godin, 2023;Sirieix et al., 2023;Williams et al., 2023). Stigmatization and discrimination are hindering factors in both sustaining (Salehi et al., 2020) and transitioning to a plant-based diet (Markowski and Roxburgh, 2019). This stigmatization can occur on the part of the media, where veganism is frequently portrayed in a negative way and described as not being feasible in everyday life (Cole and Morgan, 2011;Brookes and Chałupnik, 2023) or in the form of stigmatization and prejudice on the part of close friends and family (Haverstock and Forgays, 2012;MacInnis and Hodson, 2017;Bolderdijk and Cornelissen, 2022). ...
... Regarding the social environment, the data revealed striking differences between groups. This matches the prevailing literature, indicating that a lack of social support for a vegan lifestyle is a major hindrance to the adoption and retention of said lifestyle (e.g., Haverstock and Forgays, 2012;Markowski and Roxburgh, 2019;Sirieix et al., 2023). However, previous studies indicate that the social environment's influence seems to be more important to vegetarians than to vegans (Kessler et al., 2016;Rosenfeld and Tomiyama, 2019; see also Sirieix et al., 2023). ...
Introduction
Although vegan and vegetarian diets and lifestyles differ significantly from each other, among other things, notably in their respective consequences regarding animal welfare and their ecological impact, vegans and vegetarians are often grouped together and usually compared to omnivores in psychological research. Considering that vegans and vegetarians often share similar motives for their lifestyle choices, namely animal and environmental issues, the question arises why similar motives lead to different conclusions and correspondingly different behaviors, most notably, of course, that vegetarians consume animal-derived foods such as cheese or milk while vegans do not consume animal-derived products (e.g., food, cosmetic products). This is why this study explored the psychological differences between vegans, vegetarians, and prospective vegans – the latter group being located in an intermediate, transitionary position. Focusing on the motivational, affective and cognitive components of dietary transition and participants’ adherence to eating patterns, reasons for said patterns, possible hinderances to becoming vegan, the role of participants’ social environments, and the impact of various misconceptions regarding the feasibility of a vegan diet in everyday life were all explored.
Methods
An observational study was conducted via online questionnaire (1420 participants).
Results
Significant differences were found between vegans, prospective vegans, and vegetarians, especially concerning their knowledge of issues pertaining to their respective lifestyles.
Discussion
The critical role of knowledge is invoked as an explanation as to why vegans and vegetarians display different behaviors although they share a similar motivation. Thus, in this study the concept of vegan literacy is introduced. Additionally, the distinctive role of cheese is explored, discussing possible indications of its potentially addictive nature and, consequently, the importance of cheese as a hindering factor for pursuing a vegan diet.
... Due in part to their minority status, plant-forward dieters often report experiencing a number of social hardships. This includes society-wide stigmatization (de Groeve et al., 2021;Gregson et al., 2022;MacInnis & Hodson, 2017;Markowski & Roxburgh, 2019) and difficulties coordinating with cohabitants (Anderson & Milyavskaya, 2022;Menzies & Sheeshka, 2012;Twine, 2014). It may be especially crucial to understand the processes occurring at the meso-level, as this is where the majority of food-related decision-making takes place. ...
... Indeed, research shows that close others can dismiss plant-forward diets as temporary fads, accuse dieters of trying to convert them, dispute the dieter's motives, or criticize the dieter for undermining family values (Roth, 2005). For individuals who are considering a plant-forward diet, the anticipation of such tensions may serve as a barrier to adoption (Markowski & Roxburgh, 2019). Additionally, for those who do make the shift, the materialization of these tensions can contribute to dietary abandonment (Anderson & Milyavskaya, 2022;Menzies & Sheeshka, 2012). ...
... Given that eating is a social activity in which individuals come together to share meanings and experiences (Markowski & Roxburgh, 2019), the choice for a diet with meat restriction may also be strongly influenced by the pressures of reference groups, composed of family, friends, social media influencers, and celebrities (Janssen et al., 2016;Phua et al., 2019). These reference groups exert influences in various ways, directly and indirectly impacting individuals' feelings, views, and attitudes, eventually inducing significant behavioral changes (Markowski & Roxburgh, 2019). ...
... Given that eating is a social activity in which individuals come together to share meanings and experiences (Markowski & Roxburgh, 2019), the choice for a diet with meat restriction may also be strongly influenced by the pressures of reference groups, composed of family, friends, social media influencers, and celebrities (Janssen et al., 2016;Phua et al., 2019). These reference groups exert influences in various ways, directly and indirectly impacting individuals' feelings, views, and attitudes, eventually inducing significant behavioral changes (Markowski & Roxburgh, 2019). ...
Contextualização: Para enfrentar os desafios ambientais e de saúde atualmente enfrentados, uma das soluções possíveis é substituir o consumo de carne por fontes alternativas, umas das opções são os chamados plant-based alternativos à carne, produtos feitos à base de vegetais. O mercado de produtos alternativos à carne é crescente, por conta disso, a indústria alimentícia busca produzir produtos que busquem mimetizar a carne. Com isso, é oportuno trazer para o meio científico estudos que analisem o comportamento do consumidor desse produto alternativo à carne. Objetivo:, Ampliar o conhecimento sobre os motivos e barreiras que influenciam o consumidor de alimentos plant-based alternativos à carne, por meio de uma revisão sistemática. Metodologia: Aplicação do método ProKnow-C. Resultados: Foram selecionados 19 artigos, dos quais, após análise bibliométrica, evidenciou-se a revista Appetite, o autor Michael Siegrist e o artigo ““Meatless days” or “less but better”? Exploring strategies to adapt Western meat consumption to health and sustainability challenges” como destaques na área de conhecimento abordada. Descobertas: Conhecimento sobre a situação atual da pesquisa científica sobre produtos plant-based. Originalidade: Cobrir as lacunas existentes nas pesquisas científicas na área da do comportamento do consumidor de produtos plant-based.
... Anticipated stigma, or the expectation of discrimination related to the hidden identity and where disclosure of concealed identity has occurred, has been associated with adverse health outcomes (Bos et al., 2013;Chaudoir & Quinn, 2016;Quinn & Chaudoir, 2009). Despite prior studies suggesting that veg*ns anticipate discrimination and prejudice upon disclosure, the relationship between anticipated stigma and well-being remains understudied (Markowski & Roxburgh, 2019). ...
... Mistreatment of veg*ns, ranging from insidious slights and devaluation (e.g., microaggressions, bullying, and ridicule related to veg*n identity), interpersonal discrimination (e.g., social distancing), and life-threatening experiences (e.g., violence) is well documented (LeRette, 2014;Markowski & Roxburgh, 2019;Nachiappan, 2020;Rosenfeld, 2018;Twine, 2014). Though less focused, structural stigmatization influences the experiences of veg*ns. ...
Veg*ns of color continue to be underrepresented with their health less understood in veg*n scholarship. As intersectionality and health outcomes remain an understudied focus in anti-veg*n scholarship, the concealable stigmatized identity (CSI) framework offers a way to identify the link between stigmatization and health outcomes for VOC. Using the CSI framework, the paper provides a review of multilevel manifestations of anti-veg*n stigmatization in previous and current veg*n scholarship. The paper offers future directions for researchers to examine stigmatization and its impact on VOC. Recommendations are provided to generate knowledge about the experiences and health of VOC.
... Social factors significantly influence attitudes, intentions, and behaviors, including dietary choices (Higgs, 2015;Robinson, 2015). Discussions about dietary choices can be polarizing, causing veg*ns to face more social backlash-from stereotyping to outright discrimination and exclusion-compared to flexitarians or omnivores (Adamczyk, Modlińska, Maison, & Pisula, 2023;Aloni, Hopwood, Lenhausen, Rosenfeld, & Mohan, 2024;Markowski & Roxburgh, 2019). At the same time, people may be motivated to identify with veganism due to its perceived positivity among a certain group with high social status (Plante et al., 2019). ...
... With the shifting social norms toward plant-based eating, there might be a growing inclination to report adherence to such diets, more as an aspirational identity than reflective of actual practices (Dos Santos et al., 2023;Oliver, 2023). Nevertheless, this should not be a predominant issue since veg*ns often encounter significant social challenges and stigma, distinguishing them from flexitarians or omnivores who might face less scrutiny (Adamczyk et al., 2023;Aloni et al., 2024;Markowski & Roxburgh, 2019). This could also affect the strong positive manifold (i.e., intercorrelations) across VEMI+ scales observed in this study. ...
... Participants in Hirschler's (2011) interviews also argued that it was unfair that vegans were forced to defend their dietary choices, whereas omnivores were never expected to explain why they eat meat. As a result, interacting with others who are more hostile, and intolerant may erode the resolve of some vegans (Markowski & Roxburgh, 2019). ...
... Once this broad identity which stemmed from the meat-eating norm was rejected, it resulted in the stigmatization and hostility towards vegans or vegans among the meat-eaters. Thus, it is understandable that the majority of the interviewees claimed that they are more than happy to be interviewed, hoping that this thesis would help to lessen the misunderstandings and stereotypes against their communities that, according to Markowski and Roxburgh (2019), were reproduced from the accusations vegans faced for seemingly interfering with the meat-eating norms of most societies. ...
... According to Patella, vegaphobia refers to hatred against veg*ns, which manifests itself in stigmatizing, ridiculing or devaluing behaviors and attitudes, especially in relation to anti-species ideologies (2020, p. 105). Studies conducted in different countries show that meat-eaters have negative attitudes towards veg*ans (Michel, et al., 2021;Cole, & Morgan, 2011;Minson, & Monin, 2012;(De Groeve, & Rosenfeld, 2022;MacInnis, & Hodson, 2017;Markowski, & Roxburgh, 2019;Bagci, et al., 2022). Various studies have shown that vegans have to struggle with attitudes and behaviors such as stereotyping, mocking, ridiculing, humiliating, labeling, marginalizing, force-feeding meat products or making vegans suffer by talking about animals while eating meat around them (Minson, & Monin, 2012;MacInnis, & Hodson, 2017;Markowski, & Roxburgh, 2019;Michel, et al., 2021;Veen, et al., 2023;Uzbay-Ulgen, 2023). ...
... Studies conducted in different countries show that meat-eaters have negative attitudes towards veg*ans (Michel, et al., 2021;Cole, & Morgan, 2011;Minson, & Monin, 2012;(De Groeve, & Rosenfeld, 2022;MacInnis, & Hodson, 2017;Markowski, & Roxburgh, 2019;Bagci, et al., 2022). Various studies have shown that vegans have to struggle with attitudes and behaviors such as stereotyping, mocking, ridiculing, humiliating, labeling, marginalizing, force-feeding meat products or making vegans suffer by talking about animals while eating meat around them (Minson, & Monin, 2012;MacInnis, & Hodson, 2017;Markowski, & Roxburgh, 2019;Michel, et al., 2021;Veen, et al., 2023;Uzbay-Ulgen, 2023). There are many studies show that there are many situations where vegans are treated worse than non-vegans or are worse off for structural reasons (Horta, 2018). ...
Vegaphobia is considered to be any derogatory description of vegans, or any form of discrimination faced by vegans. The discrimination experienced can be direct or indirect. Individuals who prefer a plant-based diet experience or perceive discrimination. This study examines the concept of vegaphobia and attitudes towards anti-vegans and discriminatory behaviors against vegans based on the literature. Individuals who adopt a vegan diet claim that they are subjected to discrimination in different dimensions, ranging from being forced to consume animal products to constantly being made to explain themselves or not being able to find suitable foods for themselves. On the other hand, it is also necessary to mention the accusatory language used by vegans against non-vegans. In this study, the types of discrimination faced and felt by vegans and the positioning of non-vegans in this debate will be evaluated in the context of the concepts of vegaphobia and discrimination.
... Abundant evidence shows that reducers fear judgement for their dietary choices (Markowski & Roxburgh, 2019;Minson & Monin, 2012;Romo & Donovan-Kicken, 2012;Wehbe et al., 2022). Indeed, stereotypes about vegans are prevalent in mainstream society, and people who choose to reduce their meat and/or dairy intake fear being stereotyped as vegans (Eakman & Metallinos-Katsaras, 2022;Markowski & Roxburgh, 2019). ...
... Abundant evidence shows that reducers fear judgement for their dietary choices (Markowski & Roxburgh, 2019;Minson & Monin, 2012;Romo & Donovan-Kicken, 2012;Wehbe et al., 2022). Indeed, stereotypes about vegans are prevalent in mainstream society, and people who choose to reduce their meat and/or dairy intake fear being stereotyped as vegans (Eakman & Metallinos-Katsaras, 2022;Markowski & Roxburgh, 2019). Anticipating judgement may lead individuals to conceal identities involved in their food choices, particularly when these identities are viewed negatively by others (Bisogni et al., 2002). ...
... As such, a meatless diet may be related to cognitive reflection, as it suggests an individual's informed deviation from dominant practices. In many cultures, eating meat is expected and encouraged from an early developmental stage onwards (Mahmood et al., 2021), while there is a social cost for those who abstain from eating meat (Markowski & Roxburgh, 2019;Stanley, 2022). Meat eating remains the most traditional diet in Western societies (Dhont & Hodson, 2014 ;Zaraska, 2016), and any deviation from this majority diet implies a degree of intellectual curiosity, flexibility, and innovation. ...
Abstract
Drawing upon previous studies showing that food choices were related to cognitive style, and using a preregistered large-scale national survey (N >46,000), we replicated the finding that a reflective cognitive style was inversely linked to meat consumption. Moreover, we showed that meat excluders motivated by animal welfare displayed a less reflective cognitive style than those motivated by environmental concern. Self-attributed intelligence (SAI) was similarly related to diet choice and motivation for vegetarianism. SAI was higher among vegetarians/vegans compared to omnivores, and higher among vegetarians/vegans for the environment compared to vegetarian/vegans for animals. These results were independent of participants’ gender, age, and education. This study thereby confirmed the relevance of using cognitive style to analyze real-life issues with consequential effects on human activity and planetary health and may inform strategies aimed at increasing the popularity of plant-based diets.
... At this stage, they tend to convey messages that have a strong element of criticism toward those around them. Therefore, as pointed out in existing research (Markowski and Roxburgh, 2019), non-vegans feel that vegans' claims are being imposed on them, leading to a backlash. TW adopts the communication strategy of promoting the positive aspects of veganism by introducing vegan cuisine rather than emphasizing animal ethics. ...
This study investigated how vegans formulate their communication strategies to promote ethical consumption in interactions with other vegans, semi-vegans, and omnivores. Vegans generally adopt two types of communication strategies: delivering either a critical or a positive-tone message to non-vegans. They consider the reactions of both non-vegans and fellow vegans when choosing their communication strategies. Critical messages often lead to backlash from non-vegans and are generally ineffective in gaining their support. In contrast, non-strict messages are more likely to be positively received by non-vegans but may be viewed negatively by vegans with stricter attitudes. There is a tension between vegans with pure motives and those with flexible attitudes or semi-vegans who follow a vegan-like diet. Social interactions among vegans, non-vegans, and semi-vegans complicate the promotion of veganism, leading vegans to experience a dilemma in choosing their communication strategies.
... szenderák et al. (2022) focused on consumer acceptance and adoption of PBMa, with factors like environment, health, and willingness to pay being key drivers. social and sociocultural contexts have been the focal point of many studies regarding PMBa (Fra, 2023;Mahasuweerachai et al., 2023;Markowski & roxburgh, 2019;Onwezen et al., 2019Onwezen et al., , 2021. health beliefs influence individuals' dietary choices and patterns (ewers et al., 2021;Williams et al., 2023) and decision-making (Mcnamara & Wood, 2019). ...
Many people are shifting towards plant-based diets due to health and ethical considerations about climate change and animal welfare. Changes in dietary patterns are increasing rapidly in some countries, while this trend is just emerging in others. The present study reviews plant-based food adoption in India and identifies the critical factors that drive the purchase intention of plant-based food. The study applied an extended theory of planned behaviour, incorporating a multidimensional construct with subjective norms, environmental attitude, perceived behavioural control, social value, functional value, epistemic value, and health benefits. Environmental attitude was the most important factor, followed by health benefits and epistemic values. Social value positively influenced health benefits, indicating that consumers tried plant-based food based on recommendations by celebrities to gain approval from peers. However, after adoption, they realized the health benefits like better digestion, and reduced hormonal imbalance. Subjective norms were an insignificant factor indicating that adopting plant-based food was a personal choice without family/peer influence. Rather than focusing on meat-eating consumers only, marketers must consider vegetarian consumers and those looking to reduce meat consumption. Communication strategy by food brands and the gastronomy industry should focus less on animal welfare and nudge consumers to reduce animal product consumption due to the health benefits and overall impact on the environment.
... Indeed, the recent literature highlights a broader stigma toward patients with alternative diets, indicating social and professional challenges for vegans. According to Markowski et al., this stigmatization extends beyond the healthcare context, suggesting that vegans face similar biases in wider social settings [45]. ...
Background: As dietary habits shift in response to environmental concerns and health awareness, understanding healthcare professionals’ perceptions of vegan diets is crucial. Objectives: This study aimed to identify the beliefs and attitudes of primary care doctors and nurses in Spain towards vegan diets. Methods: A questionnaire-based, observational, cross-sectional study was conducted among 208 healthcare professionals. Results: 87% of participants followed an omnivorous diet, while only 3.4% identified as lacto-ovo-vegetarian (LOV) or vegan. Statistically significant differences were observed by sex, with women more likely to agree that livestock farming contributes to global warming (27.3% and 28.0% vs. 17.0% and 12.8%, respectively; p = 0.02). Additionally, women were more inclined to consider vegan diets suitable for vulnerable groups, such as pregnant women and children, when adequately supplemented (24.8% and 17.4% vs. 10.6% and 10.6%, respectively; p = 0.030). Healthcare professionals who followed a LOV or vegan diet were more likely to disagree with the notion that vegan diets do not provide the necessary macronutrients and micronutrients compared to omnivores (strongly disagree 19.9%, 56.3%, 85.7%; p = 0.001 for omnivores, flexitarians, and LOVs/vegans, respectively). Conclusions: Current nutrition training may not meet the needs of doctors and nurses. Furthermore, it is implied that some professionals’ attitudes towards vegan diets may be more influenced by personal beliefs than by scientific literature. These findings can inform future clinical guidelines and support a more evidence-based approach to dietary counselling for vegan populations.
... In Western countries, concerns about the environment, animals, and personal health are the most common motivations (64). Studies found that omnivores tend to show defensive stereotypes and bias toward those who choose a vegetarian or vegan diet for ethical reasons, which can clearly harm vegetarians' mental health (65)(66)(67). Additionally, economic factors can influence vegetarians' mental health differently depending on income levels. ...
Background
The relationship between vegetarianism and mental well-being remains a debated topic in traditional observational studies. Recent studies have revealed the genetic factors in vegetarianism. We aimed to use genetic variations to explore the potential causal relationships between vegetarianism and mental well-being, offering insights from a new perspective.
Methods
We conducted the inverse variance weighted approach as the primary analysis to explore the bidirectional genetic associations between vegetarianism (N = 442,589) and depressive symptoms (N = 180,866), neuroticism (N = 170,910), and subjective well-being (N = 298,420). The analysis used the summary data from the largest genome-wide association studies (GWAS). We also performed sensitivity analyses to ensure the robustness of the findings, accounting for potential heterogeneity and pleiotropy.
Results
Genetically predicted vegetarianism showed positive causal relationships with depressive symptoms (odds ratio [OR], 3.26; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.03–10.31; p = 0.044) and neuroticism (OR, 6.72; 95% CI, 2.29–19.74; p = 5.31 × 10⁻⁴), as well as a negative causal relationship with subjective well-being (OR, 0.20; 95% CI, 0.05–0.77; p = 0.019). Additionally, depressive symptoms were found to have a causal influence on vegetarianism (OR, 1.01; 95% CI, 1.00–1.02; p = 6.87 × 10⁻³). No significant heterogeneity or pleiotropy was detected.
Conclusion
Vegetarianism is causally correlated with negative mental well-being, reflected in an increased risk of depressive symptoms and neuroticism, as well as lower subjective well-being. Further research should explore the underlying mechanisms in broader populations.
... Sociological research has uncovered a general derogation of vegans at all levels of society, including the personal (MacInnis and Hodson, 2017), the institutional (Greenebaum, 2016), and the cultural (Cole and Morgan, 2011). This negativity has been identified as a key barrier to vegan transition (Markowski and Roxburgh, 2019), which is a particular nuisance given the litany of inequalities associated with non-vegan consumption ('natural' disasters and zoonotic outbreaks such as COVID-19 included). Given that vegan claims-making directly challenges established power structures and capitalist interests, vegan stigmatization and derision are perhaps predictable. ...
Sociological research has uncovered a general derogation of vegans in all levels of society including the personal (MacInnis and Hodson 2017), the institutional (Greenebaum 2016), and the cultural (Cole and Morgan 2011). This negativity has been identified as a key barrier to vegan transition (Markowski and Roxburgh 2019). It is a particular nuisance given the litany of inequalities associated with nonvegan consumption (“natural” disasters and zoonotic outbreaks like COVID-19 included).
Given that vegan claimsmaking directly challenges established power structures and capitalist interests, vegan stigmatization and derision is perhaps predictable. Nonetheless, veganism has managed to gain a foothold on the popular imagination: vegan options continually increase in availability across stores and restaurants, while, each year, growing numbers of participants register for vegan challenges (such as the UK’s Veganuary and the Afro Vegan Society’s Veguary). The public seems to be considerably more educated about the treatment of other animals in speciesist industries and the relationship between speciesism and climate change (Sanchez-Sabate and Sabaté 2019).
This increased attention is remarkable given that traditional news spaces have historically been antagonistic. Critical Animal Studies scholars have observed that the media frequently protects the interests of the powerful, particularly as media conglomeration has concentrated ownership among a small number of elites. For this reason, social movements that counter power inequities are often misrepresented or outright ignored in mainstream media (Earl et al. 2004, Hocke 1999). This power is not absolute, however, and media producers must negotiate, to some extent, with their consumers.
Having persisted for over a century, veganism has become a cultural mainstay of interest to audiences regardless of the historical misrepresentation or invisibilization of veganism. How have mainstream news channels adapted? To address this, I conducted an exploratory analysis of mainstream UK newspapers to survey the new normal of vegan ideology in a post-COVID society. Results were published in Human-Animal Relationships in Times of Pandemic and Climate Crisis (Browne & Sutton 2024). I expected that the time transpired since previous analyses in tandem with the mobilizing moment that the pandemic offered would result in a substantially different media discourse. I conducted a content analysis of articles mentioning veganism published in 2020, the first full year of COVID-19.
In contrast to the more pessimistic findings uncovered by research conducted in the 2010s, the results of this study find a mediascape that is vegan curious and generally supportive of plant-based living. Veganism is predominantly presented in a positive light, especially with regard to goods to buy, restaurants to visit and festivals to patronize. Today’s veganism is a more or less normal contender in the marketplace, at least as presented by British newspapers.
This monetized lifestyle veganism was predominantly detached from the pandemic. Although the sample used in this study encapsulated the COVID-19 crisis, much of the vegan coverage appears to have been following the momentum of the pre-existing normalization of veganism and the substantial upward trend in vegan product development and availability. Some articles did mention COVID-19, but these largely related to the space the pandemic created for testing new products or launching new services.
A few articles mentioned COVID-19 as a motivator for trying veganism or at least consuming more vegan food, and this is consistent with the heightened public attention to health, homesteading and hobbying associated with the pandemic. However, the importance of veganism for preventing pandemics (and strengthening resistance to disease) could have been emphasized, but was not.
Veganism as a solution to climate change actually surfaced more than veganism as a solution to pandemics. The somewhat ambiguous concept of climate change offers a considerably more generic frame than the pandemic and, notably, climate change is also consistent with ‘green’ capitalism’s sustainable growth (consumption-centric) model. Perhaps COVID-19 represents a missed opportunity for campaigners, but it is more likely that veganism understood as a site of resistance to zoonotic disease is considerably more political and thus harder to monetize – at least for the time being.
Ultimately, the focus on vegan products and dietary practices has created a depoliticized image of veganism. Critical discussions of non-human animal rights and speciesism were noticeably absent in the sample, while the capitalist encroachment on veganism was omnipresent. Approximately half of the articles in the sample related to vegan products or services.
... Social norms remain influential for Thai consumers, as individuals tend to value the opinions and behaviours of their social groups. Family, friends, colleagues, and admired individuals affect individuals' attitudes and behaviours, including the acceptance of plant-based foods [60]. ...
This study aims to investigate the factors influencing the adoption intention of plant-based food products and to examine the mediating effects on the relationship between adoption intention and actual behaviour. The research is based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) as the foundational theoretical framework. Convenience sampling has been applied for data collection through an online questionnaire (G-Form), resulting in 582 usable responses. The measurement model was analyzed using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), and the structural equation model was assessed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The findings indicate that factors positively influencing the adoption intention include attitudes towards plant-based food products, subjective norms, environmental concerns. Word-of-mouth communication was identified as a mediating variable in the relationship between adoption intention and actual behaviour. This research corroborates the Theory of Planned Behavior. Also, it identifies additional factors relevant to the acceptance of plant-based food products beyond the theoretical framework in Thailand. The findings provide valuable insights for business and marketing strategies about plant-based food products.
... Many Australians consider meat consumption as part of the Australian way of life, perceiving veg*anism as un-Australian (Rodan and Mummery 2019); some meat advertising carries a masculine and nationalist theme (Drew and Gottschall 2018) and perpetuates the self-identity of the Australian population as meat eaters. A stigma around veganism has been given as a reason for non-vegans to be reluctant to consider vegan eating due to its perceived disruption of social conventions in relation to food (Markowski and Roxburgh 2019;Reuber and Muschalla 2022). Lastly, individuals' eating habits, cravings for meat and other animal-based products, lack of convenience in the preparation of veg*an food, and lack of knowledge about veg*anism could be barriers to becoming veg*an in Australia. ...
... This difference in resistance towards plant-based versus healthy interventions may be related to the fact that being a meat-eater can be part of people's identity [44], eliciting feelings of reduced autonomy and strong negative attitudes towards meat reduction [45]. Moreover, resistance towards choosing more plant-based options as an omnivore may be due to vegan stigmatization [46]. Attempts to promote more plant-based meat alternatives may hence elicit strong feelings of reactance among parts of the population for whom meat eating is more than just a meal (e.g., [47]). ...
Background
A shift away from diets high in animal-based foods towards diets high in plant-based foods is desirable considering human health, environmental sustainability, and animal welfare. As the food environment plays a crucial role in shaping consumption patterns, understanding of how changes in the food environment can facilitate plant-based consumption is crucial for the so-called protein transition. The current study aims to garner insight into barriers and facilitators for food outlet managers to take action to stimulate plant-based consumption within a local food environment.
Methods
Using a maximum-variation sample approach, we examined possible barriers and facilitators to promote plant-based consumption across different types of food outlets located within a geographically shared food environment (a city in the Netherlands). We conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews among food outlet managers and applied multi-stage thematic analysis to the interview transcripts.
Results
Most managers underscored the urgency of shifting towards more plant-based diets, and perceived a growing demand for plant-based products. However, three barriers hindered most of them from taking decisive action: Managers’ perception of low consumer demand for plant-based food options; fear of consumer resistance when stimulating plant-based food options; and limited behavioral agency to offer attractive plant-based food options. The few managers who made changes, or intend to make changes, are individuals with high intrinsic motivation, knowledge and skills.
Conclusions
The present work suggests the key for change towards a food environment stimulating plant-based consumption lies in addressing three (perceived) barriers shared among diverse outlets. These are partly different from barriers for stimulating healthy consumption in general. Furthermore, current changes appear to be driven incidentally by individuals who are motivated and able to stimulate more plant-based purchases among a small targeted group of consumers.
... While minority actors have a high potential to create social change, they may face significant social sanctions for going against the majority (meat-eating) social norm, such as prejudice, stigma, and derogation (Earle & Hodson, 2017;Markowski & Roxburgh, 2019). Veganism has been characterised as a 'moralised minority practice identity' (Kurz et al., 2020) which entails particular challenges due to the moralised representation of veganism within society, its minority status, and the high visibility of vegan practices in meat-dominated environments. ...
Moralized minority actors can play important roles in social change processes by rejecting majority social norms and modeling alternative societal pathways. However, being a minority actor can be difficult, often resulting in stigma, derogation, and hostility from the majority group. For actions intrinsically linked with daily life (e.g., eating), such social obstacles might become so great that individuals acting alone experience activist burnout' and social isolation, and may stop pursuing social change altogether. Event‐based interventions are a promising (yet currently understudied) avenue for ameliorating these negative consequences and maintaining minority‐driven social change. Through on‐site field interviews ( N = 20), we explore how attending an identity‐centering mass gathering (“The Vegan Campout”) acts to validate and empower a minority group (vegans) seeking social change. We show how the event functioned as a space where vegan identity, food, and action were centered and celebrated, in stark contrast to vegans' experiences of a majority meat‐eating society, where they often experienced negativity. Experiencing a 'temporary social majority' context provided important respite for vegans to gain strength, rekindle their vegan identities, and (re)affirm their commitment to activism. Our findings provide insight into the benefits of identity‐centering events for sustaining social change efforts among moralized minority groups.
... On the other hand, it is worth noting that vegetarians and vegans face significant social pressure due to the stigmatization they encounter (Grac¸a et al., 2019;Markowski and Roxburgh, 2019). However, previous research examining individuals' attitudes toward vegetarians and vegans has failed to uncover any substantiated indications of social stigma associated with these dietary choices (Judge and Wilson, 2019;Ruby et al., 2016). ...
Food shortage is a primary challenge as the human population is increasing rapidly. Therefore, the world is looking for ways to establish sustainability in the food system to generate nutritious food with better sensory qualities. To fulfill the animal protein requirements of the world, different meat alternatives are available in the market, like cultured meat, mycoprotein, and insects, but from a sustainable point of view, plant-based meat alternatives are the most suitable. However, in producing these alternatives, industrialists need to be aware of particular challenges and opportunities in production and marketing while manufacturing. The major challenge for industrialists is the consumer acceptance rate, which depends on plant-based products' physical appearance and taste. They can improve the marketing of plant-based meat products by improving plant-based meat alternatives' physical and sensory characteristics. The focus of this paper is to discuss the technologies necessary for the production of plant-based meat alternatives. The current findings suggest that the market scenario will change for plant-based meat producers, in which customer preference and beliefs will have a massive role in the acceptance and marketing of this meat. The development of plant-based meat alternatives is the first step to achieving the goal of sustainable food; more innovations are needed to establish a healthier and sustainable food system as this type of food has a low carbon footprint compared to other products available. Keywords: Plant-based meat, sustainability, food shortage, consumer preference, opportunities, challenges.
... Moreover, although we observed significant differences in the consumption of information about COVID-19 in traditional media by the two groups, vegans have relied heavily on them for information about crisisrelated issues, even more so than for other issues. This shows the high likelihood that vegans anticipate vegan stigma-especially with the media's well-known speciesist bias (Khazaal and Almiron, 2016), stigmatization of animal rights advocacy (MacInnis and Hodson, 2021) and stigmatization for disrupting social conventions (Markowski and Roxburgh, 2019). ...
Animal advocacy is a complex phenomenon. As a social movement encompassing diverse moral stances and lifestyle choices, veganism and vegetarianism (veg*) are at its core, and animal testing raises as a notably contentious issue within its members. This paper addresses this critical topic. Employing data from an international quantitative survey conducted between June and July 2021, our research explores how ethical vegans and vegetarians responded during the COVID-19 crisis. By comparing the experiences and choices between the two groups, we aimed to understand the variances in attitudes and behaviors in the face of an ethical dilemma, highlighting the interplay between personal beliefs and social pressures in times of a health crisis. Our findings reveal stark contrasts in how vegans and vegetarians navigated the pandemic; vegans displayed less conformity yet experienced a significant compromise of their ethical values, particularly in their overwhelming acceptance of vaccination. This study enhances the field of veg* research and social movement studies by exploring how a social crisis shapes members’ behaviors and perspectives. Our findings also contribute to a better understanding of the challenges and prejudices that a minority group such as vegans may face and how they cope with the pressure to go against the mainstream at a time when society is polarized by a single discourse that goes against their moral values.
... (b) Research in this category highlights negative perceptions of the identities associated with meat-free diets (Markowski and Roxburgh, 2019;Vandermoere et al., 2019). Studies show that vegans, vegetarians and meat-reducers commonly experience their diets and identities as unwelcome to others and develop strategies to handle anticipated conflicts in social settings (De Groeve et al., 2022;Salmivaara et al., 2022;Twine, 2014). ...
Cultural conventions are central to tackling unsustainable consumption. In the Global North food conventions are increasingly contested due to the political importance of climate change and the share of global greenhouse gas emissions tied to animal food production and consumption. Significant reductions in meat consumption are touted as pathways to adaptation, but most consumers remain committed to consuming meat-based meals and diets with meat. To explore how consumers handle these issues in today’s cultural context, this article examines culturally appropriate ways of rejecting meat reduction. The theoretical framework is based on interactionism and accounts. The empirical material is from focus group discussions with Danish consumers. We find that in discussions about using plant-based meat, norms of proper culinary conduct are held to be more pressing guides for normative assessment than climate impacts. We also show that the status and function of climate impact “knowledge” is complex and ambiguous. A shared social knowledge of the climate impacts of meat consumption appears to exist alongside “questionable knowledge” and “lack of knowledge”, both of which are referred to excuse, justify, and charge others in reasoning supporting continued meat consumption. Knowledge of climate impacts is accepted when it fits cultural conventions but appears less knowable if it poses challenges to contemporary consumer culture. The article contributes insights into the ways in which cultural conventions and complex knowledge negotiations help to preserve unsustainable consumption.
This article investigates the extent to which health professionals are equipped to support vegan mothers in the UK and how stigma plays a part in this issue. Veganism has grown in popularity in the UK in recent years (as well as in many other countries worldwide) with the environmental, health and animal welfare benefits of the lifestyle becoming more widely researched and publicised. However, research into the topic of veganism has highlighted that, up until recently, many vegans experienced stigma for their beliefs, with the UK being no exception. Similarly, a growing body of research has highlighted the long-accepted and gendered issue of mum-shaming, whereby mothers, as opposed to fathers, are disproportionately criticised and blamed for their parenting skills. In this article we want to examine the experience of women who fit into both categories of veganism and motherhood in their encounters with health professionals during pregnancy and while raising their babies on a vegan diet.
Adopting semi-structured interviews, this study gauged the opinions of a sample of vegan mothers, non-vegan mothers, midwives and paediatricians. Our findings indicate that in the UK, healthcare professionals are not equipped to provide vegan mothers with nutritional advice. This was found to be due to a lack of understanding of veganism, which, in some cases, fuelled negative ideas on veganism and led to stigma towards vegan pregnant women and vegan mothers. All healthcare professionals interviewed stressed the severe lack of training on vegan nutrition, as well as nutrition more generally.
Adopting a plant-based diet (PBD) has environmental sustainability benefits and has been shown to improve overall health and quality of life, yet for most people a diet shift towards a plant-based one remains a challenge, due to personal and environmental obstacles. Important independent decisions on self-care and nutritional habits occur in the first year of enrollment for college students. This cross-sectional quantitative study aims to examine the association between health beliefs, motivators, barriers, self-efficacy, and mental health status and following a more PBD in college students. A total of 449 Californian public university and junior college students completed an online survey. A stepwise multiple regression model was used to predict the level of intention to follow a PBD. Self-efficacy ( β = 0.28, P < .001), motivators ( β = 0.33, P < .001), and barriers ( β = −0.19, P < .001) significantly predicted and accounted for 35% of the variance in intention to follow a PBD. The results reveal that greater self-efficacy, higher motivation, and fewer barriers predicted higher intention to follow a PBD. Beliefs did not add significantly to following a PBD.
As a part of the battle against climate change, many plant-based meat alternative products have been launched in recent years—without notable success. One explanation could be that consumers of meat alternatives are seen as socially deviant from those consuming animal-based protein products. This study adopts the BIAS Map framework, which has been underutilized in the food consumption research, in order to reveal the stereotypical beliefs, emotional responses, and behavioral tendencies that consumers of meat alternatives evoke in observers. An online experiment is conducted, participants (N = 3600) from four European countries evaluate fictitious consumers using three shopping lists that include meat products and their alternatives in varying combinations. The results reveal a conflicting picture of those who are believed to favor meat alternatives. They are seen as environmentally friendly, health-conscious people who adhere to high moral standards, and are worthy of admiration. But on the contrary, they also elicit fear, contempt, and anger in observers, who as a result socially exclude and even show aggression toward them. Second, the findings produce a novel insight regarding moderation effects related to observers' need for affiliation and status. Those high in need of affiliation demonstrate the strongest positive change in their relation to consumers who appear to favor both traditional meat products and their more modern alternatives. Additionally, those high in need of status tend to evaluate consumers favoring the modern alternatives as evoking more anger and envy, compared with consumers favoring traditional meat products. This study has several theoretical, managerial, and societal implications.
Social situations can present challenges for those looking to reduce or avoid eating meat. In an experimental vignette study with a large representative sample of 1,117 UK-based meat eaters, we explore affective responses to requests for vegetarian meals and perceptions of those making the request across four social situations: a BBQ, a pub, a restaurant dinner, and a dinner party. We examine moderators of these perceptions including whether the requester presents themselves as vegetarian or a meat restrictor and whether they cite health, environmental or no motives for their request. Overall, we find that these moderators have a greater impact on meat eaters’ perceptions of the requester than on their affective responses to the request. We also find that these outcomes are more impacted by the mention of motives than they are diet type. Standout findings include evidence that people citing environmental motives for their vegetarian meal request are perceived more negatively, while those with health motives are perceived more positively. We also identify substantial heterogeneity across the respondents’ levels of meat attachment: those who are more attached to meat have more negative perceptions of vegetarian meal requesters and experience higher negative affect and lower positive affect in response to the request.
Studies have previously shown that there were many vegetarian movements in the world, using many different models to indicate vegetarian food choice behavior. Among the factors affecting the motivation to become a vegetarian, perception and attitude are considered important factors influencing the decision to switch from using foods of animal origin to plant-based ones. There are many measured aspects of perception ranging from health, religion, love of animals, or animal rights. Among these, environmental perception increasingly shows a clear influence on vegetarian motivation, especially for young people. This current study aims to find out whether factors relating to perception including environmental perception, influence people’s motivation to become vegetarian in Ho Chi Minh City. To achieve this goal, the research surveyed 360 people living in Ho Chi Minh City (divided into three groups (students, office workers, and manual workers) using a direct questionnaire. Research results show that among the four independent variables (perception, ability, opportunity, barriers), there are three variables (1) perception; (2) opportunity; and (3) barriers having a significant relationship with the vegetarian motivation of people in Ho Chi Minh City. From the findings, this study points out key highlights in people’s current vegetarian food choices in this area, including environmental perception.
A significant body of research suggests that traditional masculine beliefs act as a barrier to reducing meat consumption and transitioning to a more ethical and sustainable food system. Here, we report a pre-registered experiment examining whether men who eat meat are more open to adopting plant-based diets when these diets are associated with traditional models of masculinity. A total of 1069 men who eat meat were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: a social media post with a plant-based meal featuring a male entrepreneur or a male bodybuilder (two experimental conditions), a social media post with a plant-based meal without a masculine model (social media post control condition), or a condition without any stimuli (no-information control condition). Both the entrepreneur and the bodybuilder were perceived as highly masculine, but these experimental conditions did not significantly affect participants’ perceived fit between plant-based eating and masculinity, nor did they affect tendencies to justify eating meat as necessary, attitudes towards plant-based diets, or willingness to adopt a plant-based diet. Nevertheless, the results supported previous research findings indicating that men who strongly identify as meat-eaters and those who consume more meat tend to perceive themselves as more masculine, feel more pressure from societal expectations to eat meat, justify meat-eating more strongly, view plant-based diets as less masculine, and are more negative about and less willing to adopt plant-based diets. Our findings raise questions about the “masculinization” of plant-based diets as a strategy for promoting dietary change among men.
Consumers increasingly prefer lattes using alternative milk from plant-based sources. This study aims to find the factors affecting consumer intention to purchase lattes using alternative milk from plant-based sources and to compare the links between the factors and purchase intentions depending on two labels, “vegan” and “plant-based.” An online, scenario-based experiment was conducted with a between-subjects design (plant-based: n=268, vegan: n=265), followed by a survey. In both groups, the results show that the perceived benefits positively affect purchase intention, but the perceived barrier (i.e., vegetarian stigma) did not. Perceived benefits and preference were higher when showing a “plant-based latte” label focusing on the presence of plant-based ingredients than when showing a “vegan latte” label focusing on the absence of animal-based ingredients. For the label “vegan latte,” even if consumers are non-vegan, the higher their food curiosity, food snobbery, and food variety-seeking tendency, the higher their purchase intention. It suggests to marketers and menu developers what needs to be highlighted and which consumers to target to boost sales of latte using alternative milk. The findings emphasize the potential for labels to promote the purchase intention of alternative lattes, offering a strategy for changing consumer behavior.
Behaviour change has great potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions quickly, helping to prevent dangerous global warming. Some of the most impactful changes are: flying less, eating less meat, driving electric cars, improving home energy efficiency, increased use of public transport and active travel. However, these choices have proved elusive at scale and are rarely encouraged or modelled by high-status individuals (“leaders”), despite established knowledge about the influence of leaders as role models. Applying theories of embodied leadership and credibility enhancing displays, our novel pre-registered survey experiment (n = 1267) reveals that visible leading by example from politicians and celebrities significantly increases the willingness of members of the UK public to make these high-impact low-carbon choices. In addition, leading by example greatly increases perceptions of leader credibility, trustworthiness, competence, and favourability. We find no significant effects of leading by example on people’s wider perceptions of climate change, but a strong “appetite for leadership” among the public is revealed. In light of these findings, we discuss how embodied leadership by way of visible low-carbon behaviour from leaders may provide a crucial “missing link” for climate change mitigation.
Research shows that veganism is associated with many benefits, including those related to physical health and the environment. However, veganism also comes with disadvantages, such as stigma. Stigma refers to the process by which individuals are negatively labeled based on certain characteristics, identities, or statuses that they possess, and as a result, are negatively treated and evaluated by others. For vegans, stigma results from being identified as a member of the vegan social category and can be traced to culturally shared assumptions about what vegans do, who they are, how they think, and with whom they associate. In this chapter, I detail these sources of vegan stigma and highlight the consequences (and mechanisms producing such consequences) that may influence vegans’ (and non-vegans’) daily lives. I also discuss the methodological and empirical gaps in this area of study, outlining several promising areas for future research on the topic.
Context
Shifting from current dietary patterns to diets rich in plant-based (PB) foods and lower in animal-based foods (ABFs) is generally regarded as a suitable strategy to improve nutritional health and reduce environmental impacts. Despite the recent growth in supply of and demand for novel plant-based foods (NPBFs), a comprehensive overview is lacking.
Objectives
This review provides a synthesis of available evidence, highlights challenges, and informs public health and environmental strategies for purposeful political decision-making by systematically searching, analyzing, and summarizing the available literature.
Data Sources
Five peer-reviewed databases and grey literature sources were rigorously searched for publications.
Data Extraction
Study characteristics meeting the inclusion criteria regarding NPBF nutrient composition and health and environmental outcomes in high-income countries were extracted.
Data analysis
Fifty-seven peer-reviewed and 36 grey literature sources were identified; these were published in 2016–2022. NPBFs typically have substantially lower environmental impacts than ABFs, but the nutritional contents are complex and vary considerably across brands, product type, and main primary ingredient. In the limited evidence on the health impacts, shifts from ABFs to PB meats were associated with positive health outcomes. However, results were mixed for PB drinks, with links to micronutrient deficiencies.
Conclusion
If carefully selected, certain NPBFs have the potential to be healthier and nutrient-rich alternatives to ABFs and typically have smaller environmental footprints. More disaggregated categorization of various types of NPBFs would be a helpful step in guiding consumers and key stakeholders to make informed decisions. To enable informed policymaking on the inclusion of NPBFs in dietary transitions as part of a wider net-zero and health strategy, future priorities should include nutritional food standards, labelling, and subdivisions or categorizations of NPBFs, as well as short- and long-term health studies evaluating dietary shifts from ABFs to NPBFs and standardized environmental impact assessments, ideally from independent funders.
Previous research suggests that people hold both positive and negative stereotypes of vegans, but little is known about the specific content of those stereotypes. In two studies (total N = 2,027), we identified the structure of meat-eaters’ stereotypes of vegans and developed a scale to measure them. Stereotypes of vegans assorted into three positive (compassionate, healthy, and self-disciplined) and three negative (unconventional, condescending, and unhealthy) dimensions. Meat-eaters perceived vegans more positively when they understood their motivations for their diet, were familiar with vegans, and shared their concerns for the environment. In contrast, meat-eaters who perceived vegans more negatively were more conservative, had a strong meat-eating identity, and were highly motivated to eat meat. Whereas most attitudes predicted overall positive and negative evaluations of vegans, some predicted specific stereotypes of vegans. This model and scale provide a foundation for vegan stereotype research and for improving intergroup relations between meat-eaters and vegans.
Purpose
This study aims to examine how veganism is “seen” by young adult non-vegan consumers and how prevailing attitudes reinforce or challenge stigmas around veganism.
Design/methodology/approach
Photovoice methodology was used to explore young non-vegan consumers’ attitudes and beliefs towards veganism. Data was collected from students studying advertising at a major university in Australia, who produced images and narratives reflective of their own attitudes towards veganism. Polytextual thematic analysis of the resulting visual data was then undertaken to reveal the dominant themes underpinning participants’ attitudes. Participant narratives were then reviewed to confirm whether the ascribed meaning aligned with participants’ intended meaning.
Findings
Participant images were reflective of first, how they saw their world and their place within it, which showed the interplay and interconnectedness between humans, animals and nature, and second, how they saw vegans within this world, with both positive and negative attitudes expressed. Interestingly, vegans were simultaneously admired and condemned. By situating these attitudes along a spectrum of moral evaluation, bounded by stigmatisation and moral legitimacy, participants saw vegans as being either Radicals, Pretenders, Virtuous or Pragmatists. For veganism to become more widely accepted by non-vegans, there is an important role to be played by each vegan type.
Originality/value
This study offers a more nuanced understanding of how and why dissociative groups, such as vegans, become stigmatised, which has implications for messaging and marketing practices around veganism and associated products/services. Future research could use a similar methodology to understand why other minority groups in society are stereotyped and stigmatised, which has broader social implications.
Often stereotyped as being apathetic to the human suffering, the American vegan movement has historically failed to build alliances with other social justice movements. As intersectional feminism gains a foothold in the movement and external political crises challenge the movement’s frame of reference, the role that identity plays in movement progress has become a serious concern. Using the 2016 election as a flashpoint, this article considers if the identity backlash characterized by the Trump campaign finds parallels in the American vegan movement. A survey of 287 American vegans finds limited evidence of Trump veganism, defined here as a single-issue focus on speciesism that rejects the relevance of human-experienced systems of oppression. However, respondents do find that movement diversity efforts are insufficient, especially when controlling for race and gender. Most respondents were ethically-motivated vegans, liberal voters, and intersectionally-oriented activists who reported multiple engagements with various leftist movements. Only four percent of respondents voted Trump, while 14% agreed with or were neutral about Trump’s campaign promise to put “America first”. Those who were vegan for reasons of self-interest and had been vegan for less than a year were significantly more likely to support Trump’s conservative agenda and were slightly less likely to participate in other social movements.
High levels of meat consumption are increasingly being criticised for ethical, environmental, and social reasons. Plant-based meat substitutes have been identified as healthy sources of protein that, in comparison to meat, offer a number of social, environmental and health benefits and may play a role in reducing meat consumption. However, there has been a lack of research on the role they can play in the policy agenda and how specific meat substitute attributes can influence consumers to replace partially replace meat in their diets. In this paper, we examine consumers’ preferences for attributes of meat and meat substitute products and develop consumer segments based on these preferences. The results of a choice experiment with 247 UK consumers, using food labels and mince (ground meat), illustrate that the type of mince, fat content, country of origin and price are major factors that influence choice. Carbon footprint, method of production and brand play a secondary role in determining consumers’ choices of meat/meat substitutes. Latent class analysis is used to identify six consumer segments: price conscious, healthy eaters, taste driven, green, organic and vegetarian consumers which have different socio-demographic characteristics and meat consumption patterns. Future interventions and policies aimed at reducing meat consumption including labelling, provision of more information, financial incentives, educational campaigns and new product development will be more effective if they are holistic and target specific consumer segments, instead of focus on the average consumer.
This article reports upon research on vegan transition, which I bring into dialogue with Sara Ahmed’s figure of the killjoy. Ahmed’s work on affect and the feminist killjoy is found to be apt for considering contemporary vegans and their transgression of normative scripts of happiness and commensality in a dominant meat and dairy consuming culture. The decentring of joy and happiness is also found to be integral to the critical deconstructive work of the vegan killjoy. Ahmed’s ideas further complement the frame of practice theory that I draw upon to understand the process of transition especially in the sense of opposing the meanings of dominant practices. Although food and veganism are not commented upon by Ahmed, the vegan subject constitutes, I argue, a potent further example of what she terms an “affect alien” who must willfully struggle against a dominant affective order and community. Drawing upon interviews with 40 vegans based in the UK, I illustrate examples of contestation and negotiation by vegans and those close to them. The article finds in the figure of the killjoy not only a frame by which to partly understand the negotiation of relationships between vegans and non-vegans but also an opportunity for further intersectional labour between veganism and feminism.
Two studies investigated why vegan stigma occurs and why people who eat meat are often unaccepting of vegans. Study 1 measured vegan stigma based on Link and Phelan’s (2001) model and proposed that the communal food hypothesis provides a partial explanation for vegan stigma. Study 1 revealed that labeling is the most salient dimension of vegan stigma, and being able to share food with others was important to participants which might explain why vegans are stigmatized. Study 2 explored how pro- and anti-vegan messages induced emotional response to veganism and the roles of argument strength and depth of message processing in perception of stigma. Study 2 found that anger and discomfort were strong moderators between messages, argument strength, and stigma response. Together these studies provide evidence to explain why vegans are stigmatized.
Recent theorizing suggests the 4Ns-that is, the belief that eating meat is natural, normal, necessary, and nice-are common rationalizations people use to defend their choice of eating meat. However, such theorizing has yet to be subjected to empirical testing. Six studies were conducted on the 4Ns. Studies 1a-1b demonstrated that the 4N classification captures the vast majority (83%-91%) of justifications people naturally offer in defense of eating meat. In Study 2, individuals who endorsed the 4Ns tended also to objectify (dementalize) animals and included fewer animals in their circle of moral concern, and this was true independent of social dominance orientation. Subsequent studies (Studies 3-5) showed that individuals who endorsed the 4Ns tend not to be motivated by ethical concerns when making food choices, are less involved in animal-welfare advocacy, less driven to restrict animal products from their diet, less proud of their animal-product decisions, tend to endorse Speciesist attitudes, tend to consume meat and animal products more frequently, and are highly committed to eating meat. Furthermore, omnivores who strongly endorsed the 4Ns tended to experience less guilt about their animal-product decisions, highlighting the guilt-alleviating function of the 4Ns.
Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
The proportion of individuals choosing to follow a vegan diet has increased in recent years. The choice is made for different reasons, primarily concern for animals (ethics) and health, which may impact both specific food choices and other lifestyle behaviors linked to health outcomes. To determine the extent to which the reason for following a vegan diet was associated with health behaviors, we conducted an online survey recruiting an international sample of 246 individuals who reported adhering to a vegan diet. We hypothesized that compared to those following the diet for ethical reasons, those doing so for health reasons would consume foods with higher nutritional value and engage in other healthier lifestyle behaviors. Our hypotheses were partially supported in that those citing health reasons (n=45) reported eating more fruit (U=3503.00, p=0.02) and fewer sweets (U=3347.00, p<0.01) than did those citing ethical reasons (n=201). Individuals endorsing ethical reasons reported being on the diet longer (U=3137.00, p<0.01), and more frequent consumption of soy (U=2936.00, p<0.01), foods rich in vitamin D (U=3441.00, p=0.01), high-polyphenol beverages (U=3124.50, p<0.01), and vitamin supplements (vitamin D: χ(2)=4.65, p=0.04; vitamin B12: χ(2)=4.46, p=0.03) than did those endorsing health reasons. As these factors may affect outcome in studies investigating the impact of vegan diets on health, they should be taken into account when studying persons following a vegan diet.
Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
As arguments become more pronounced that meat consumption harms the environment, public health, and animals, meat eaters should experience increased pressure to justify their behavior. Results of a first study showed that male undergraduates used direct strategies to justify eating meat, including endorsing pro-meat attitudes, denying animal suffering, believing that animals are lower in a hierarchy than humans and that it is human fate to eat animals, and providing religious and health justifications for eating animals. Female undergraduates used the more indirect strategies of dissociating animals from food and avoiding thinking about the treatment of animals. A second study found that the use of these male strategies was related to masculinity. In the two studies, male justification strategies were correlated with greater meat consumption, whereas endorsement of female justification strategies was correlated with less meat and more vegetarian consumption. These findings are among the first to empirically verify Adams’s (1990) theory on the sexual politics of meat linking feminism and vegetarianism. They suggest that to simply make an informational appeal about the benefits of a vegetarian diet may ignore a primary reason why men eat meat: It makes them feel like real men. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved)
The present study examined intergroup judgments made between four groups of non-meat eaters: health vegetarians; ethical vegetarians; health vegans, and ethical vegans. Consistent with hypotheses based on horizontal hostility and the need to maintain ingroup distinctiveness, ethical vegetarians gave unfavorable evaluations to health vegetarians relative to vegans, especially when the mainstream omnivore group was made salient. Contrary to expectations, vegans gave relatively more favorable evaluations to ethical vegetarians than health vegetarians when mainstream salience was low. This was especially true for vegans who were motivated primarily by ethical concerns. When mainstream salience was high, vegans did not distinguish between the vegetarian subgroups. Results suggest that one's motives for abstaining from meat often play a larger role in this type of intergroup perceptions than one's dietary practices.
This study explores vegetarians’ and semi-vegetarians’ motives for reducing their meat intake. Participants are categorized as either vegetarians, who remove all meat from their diet, semi-vegetarians, who significantly reduce their meat intake (at least three days a week), or light semi-vegetarians, who mildly reduce their meat intake (once or twice a week). The results show that most differences appear between vegetarians and both groups of semi-vegetarians. Animal rights and ecological concerns, together with taste preferences, predict a vegetarian diet, while an increase in health motives increases the odds of being semi-vegetarian. Yet, the choice between a semi-vegetarian and a light semi-vegetarian diet can also be predicted based on animal rights concerns and taste preferences. To conclude, even within each diet group, subgroups with different motives appear, and it is recommended that future researchers pay more attention to these differences.
Thirty-two vegans were interviewed in order to examine the reasons for becoming vegan, the sustaining
motivation to persist, the interpersonal and intrapersonal impact of the diet and associated
practices, and the vegans’ assessment of omnivores’ eating practices. Interviews were analyzed using
a model that diagrams the process of becoming vegan provided by McDonald (2000). Participants
reported strained professional and personal relationships as a result of their diet and beliefs. Vegan
diets were associated with an increase in physical, eudaemonic, and spiritual well-being.
College or university is a critical period regarding unhealthy changes in eating behaviours in students. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore which factors influence Belgian (European) university students' eating behaviour, using a qualitative research design. Furthermore, we aimed to collect ideas and recommendations in order to facilitate the development of effective and tailored intervention programs aiming to improve healthy eating behaviours in university students.
Using a semi-structured question guide, five focus group discussions have been conducted consisting of 14 male and 21 female university students from a variety of study disciplines, with a mean age of 20.6 +/- 1.7 yrs. Using Nvivo9, an inductive thematic approach was used for data analysis.
After the transition from secondary school to university, when independency increases, students are continuously challenged to make healthful food choices. Students reported to be influenced by individual factors (e.g. taste preferences, self-discipline, time and convenience), their social networks (e.g. (lack of) parental control, friends and peers), physical environment (e.g. availability and accessibility, appeal and prices of food products), and macro environment (e.g. media and advertising). Furthermore, the relationships between determinants and university students' eating behaviour seemed to be moderated by university characteristics, such as residency, student societies, university lifestyle and exams. Recommendations for university administrators and researchers include providing information and advice to enhance healthy food choices and preparation (e.g. via social media), enhancing self-discipline and self-control, developing time management skills, enhancing social support, and modifying the subjective as well as the objective campus food environment by e.g. making healthy foods price-beneficial and by providing vending machines with more healthy products.
This is the first European study examining perceived determinants of eating behaviour in university students and collecting ideas and recommendations for healthy eating interventions in a university specific setting. University characteristics (residency, exams, etc.) influence the relationships between individual as well as social environmental determinants and university students' eating behaviour, and should therefore be taken into account when designing effective and tailored multilevel intervention programs aiming to improve healthy eating behaviours in university students.
In family meals the normative and the performative are very far apart—though everyone likes to think of the family table as a place of harmony and solidarity, it is often the scene for the exercise of power and authority, a place where conflict prevails. My interest in this topic was sparked by research on middle-class parents’ struggles with their “picky eater” children. Besides narrating the way the dinner table became battleground with their own children, many parents also recalled their own childhood family meals as painful and difficult. From this very narrow focus on family struggles, I expand the discussion to the larger question of why this topic is relatively ignored in social science, and I question the sources of the normative power of the family “happy meal.” The ideological emphasis on family dinners has displaced social responsibility from public institutions to private lives, and the construction of normative family performances is part of a process that constructs different family types as deviant and delinquent.
Objective:
The purpose of this article was to comprehensively review published literature about strategies to reduce self-stigma among people with mental illness. Recommendations and implications for research also are discussed.
Methods:
The electronic databases of Ovid, PubMed, and PsycINFO were searched for peer-reviewed articles published between January 2000 and August 2011 by using the key words “self-stigma,” “internalized stigma,” “perceived stigma,” and “stigma intervention.” The search was further narrowed to studies that described a detailed intervention and that used self-stigma as a primary or secondary outcome, tested the intervention among individuals with a psychiatric illness, and analyzed data quantitatively with acceptable statistical tools.
Results:
Fourteen articles met inclusion criteria, and eight reported significant improvement in self-stigma outcomes. Participants predominantly had schizophrenia and related disorders or depression. Six self-stigma reduction strategies were identified. Psychoeducation was the most frequently tested intervention. Self-stigma definitions, measurements, and conceptual frameworks varied considerably across these studies. Several studies lacked a theoretical framework for their intervention. Six different scales were used to measure self-stigma.
Conclusions:
Two prominent approaches for self-stigma reduction emerged from our review: one, interventions that attempt to alter the stigmatizing beliefs and attitudes of the individual; and two, interventions that enhance skills for coping with self-stigma through improvements in self-esteem, empowerment, and help-seeking behavior. The second approach seems to have gained traction among stigma experts. Targeting high-risk groups to preempt self-stigma appears to be a promising area for future research.
The American diet has changed substantially over the last few decades. These changes provide a test for social theory and have substantial effects on the demand for various food products, thus impacting U.S. agriculture. In this paper a rapidly growing dietary choice—vegetarianism—is explored. Prevalence of various forms of vegetarianism is estimated in a representative sample of a suburban population and factors that influence choice of a vegetarian diet are examined. About 7 percent of the sample report they are vegetarians. The prevalence of vegetarianism is not influenced by age, gender, or education, but individuals holding traditional values are less likely to be vegetarian than others. There also is some evidence mat individuals holding altruistic values are more likely than others to be vegetarians.
Focus groups have received little attention from sociologists, although they are a commonly used qualitative technique in market research. The data collected in focus group sessions typically consist of tape-recorded group discussions among four to ten participants who share their thoughts and experiences on a set of topics selected by the researcher. We present a brief description of dimensions along which focus groups vary in their format and relate these dimensions to an example from our own focus groups, where the topic is how people think about the causes and prevention of heart attacks. We compare focus groups to informant interviews and participant observation, and we describe their application, either as a self-contained data collection strategy, or in conjunction with other qualitative and quantitative methods. We conclude with a discussion of the value of focus groups in triangulating data collection from several different methods.
Results of experiments employing the minimal group paradigm (MGP) (Tajfel et al., 1971) have provided evidence that mere categorization can—at least on average—lead to in-group favoritism, i.e., allocating more resources to in-group members than to out-group members. This effect is often explained by sociomotivational processes in which persons favor their own group in order to enhance their social self-esteem (e.g., Tajfel & Turner, 1986). However, in-group favoritism in the MGP can alternatively be explained by assuming that persons simply follow social norms or scripts that are currently accessible and provide behavioral prescriptions for the task at hand. This explanation was tested by experimentally varying the accessibility of behavior scripts with a priming procedure within a MGP. As expected, priming of “loyalty” compared to priming of “equality” led to (a) higher perceptions that loyalty is expected by in-group members, (b) increased in-group favoritism, (c) increased expression of in-group identification. Moreover, while self-esteem ratings were positively correlated with in-group favoritism after priming of loyalty, this relation was reversed after priming of equality.
By departing from social norms regarding food behaviors, vegetarians acquire membership in a distinct social group and can develop a salient vegetarian identity. However, vegetarian identities are diverse, multidimensional, and unique to each individual. Much research has identified fundamental psychological aspects of vegetarianism, and an identity framework that unifies these findings into common constructs and conceptually defines variables is needed. Integrating psychological theories of identity with research on food choices and vegetarianism, this paper proposes a conceptual model for studying vegetarianism: The Unified Model of Vegetarian Identity (UMVI). The UMVI encompasses ten dimensions—organized into three levels (contextual, internalized, and externalized)—that capture the role of vegetarianism in an individual's self-concept. Contextual dimensions situate vegetarianism within contexts; internalized dimensions outline self-evaluations; and externalized dimensions describe enactments of identity through behavior. Together, these dimensions form a coherent vegetarian identity, characterizing one's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors regarding being vegetarian. By unifying dimensions that capture psychological constructs universally, the UMVI can prevent discrepancies in operationalization, capture the inherent diversity of vegetarian identities, and enable future research to generate greater insight into how people understand themselves and their food choices.
Adapting Western meat consumption to health and sustainability challenges requires an overall reduction of industrially produced animal proteins plus a partial replacement by plant proteins. Combining insights on food, environment, and consumers, this paper aims to explore change strategies that may help to meet these challenges, such as promoting smaller portions of meat ("less"), smaller portions using meat raised in a more sustainable manner ("less but better"), smaller portions and eating more vegetable protein ("less and more varied"), and meatless meals with or without meat substitutes ("veggie-days"). The underlying logic of the strategies was clarified by analyzing dietary choices. A nationwide sample of 1,083 Dutch consumers provided information on current eating practices and potential changes. The results show that strategies to change meat eating frequencies and meat portion sizes will appeal to overlapping but partly different segments of consumers and that these strategies can be applied to address consumers in terms of their own preferences. The strategies appeared to have different strengths and weaknesses, making them complementary pathways to facilitate step-by-step changes in the amounts and the sources of protein consumed.
This book is a broad-ranging and provocative study of the human passion for meat. It will intrigue anyone who has ever wondered why meat is important to us; why we eat some animals but not others; why vegetarianism is increasing; why we aren't cannibals; and how meat is associated with environmental destruction.
Vegetarianism and veganism are increasingly prevalent in Western countries, yet anecdotal expressions of negativity toward vegetarians and vegans are common. We empirically tested whether bias exists toward vegetarians and vegans. In Study 1 omnivores evaluated vegetarians and vegans equivalently or more negatively than several common prejudice target groups (e.g., Blacks). Bias was heightened among those higher in right-wing ideologies, explained by heightened perceptions of vegetarian/vegan threat. Vegans (vs. vegetarians) and male (vs. female) vegetarians/vegans were evaluated more negatively overall. In Study 2 omnivores evaluated vegetarians and vegans more negatively than several nutritional outgroups (e.g., gluten intolerants) and evaluated vegan/vegetarians motivated by animal rights or environmental concerns (vs. health) especially negatively. In Study 3, vegetarians and especially vegans reported experiencing negativity stemming from their diets. Empirically documenting antivegetarian/vegan bias adds to a growing literature finding bias toward benign yet social norm-challenging others.
Social science research on stigma has grown dramatically over the past two decades, particularly in social psychology, where researchers have elucidated the ways in which people construct cognitive categories and link those categories to stereotyped beliefs. In the midst of this growth, the stigma concept has been criticized as being too vaguely defined and individually focused. In response to these criticisms, we define stigma as the co-occurrence of its components-labeling, stereotyping, separation, status loss, and discrimination-and further indicate that for stigmatization to occur, power must be exercised. The stigma concept we construct has implications for understanding several core issues in stigma research, ranging from the definition of the concept to the reasons stigma sometimes represents a very persistent predicament in the lives of persons affected by it. Finally, because there are so many stigmatized circumstances and because stigmatizing processes can affect multiple domains of people's lives, stigmatization probably has a dramatic bearing on the distribution of life chances in such areas as earnings, housing, criminal involvement, health, and life itself. It follows that social scientists who are interested in understanding the distribution of such life chances should also be interested in stigma.
Identifying as a vegan is a public declaration of one's identity, morals and lifestyle. Veganism is more than a diet; it is a philosophy and ethic. However, not all vegans hold the same norms and values. The differences are often determined by the reasons why one chooses to become a
vegan. Using Coffman's theory of impression management and the presentation of self, this qualitative study examines how sixteen self-defined ethical vegans negotiate contradictions in their ethics and behavior. The vegans construct a sense of authenticity through accommodating strategies
when they feel inauthentic. This is a two-prong process. They present a narrative of themselves in relation to the “other”-those they define as health vegans-and in relation to other ethical vegans. Through these narratives, this paper explores how these vegans negotiate the difficulties
of living in an animal-based consumer-driven society in a manner that preserves their ethics. Additionally, this paper observes how they cope when their behavior contradicts their identity as authentic vegans.
Through an examination of vegetarians' practical boundary-work, this paper not only highlights the significance of people's dietary identity but also accounts for how the triadic relationship among social groups complicates people's boundary-work. This paper illuminates vegetarians' strategies for managing cultural membership and identity in a triadic group relationship—namely, meat-eaters, vegetarians and vegans. In the triadic group constellation, I distinguish three types of hierarchical boundary-work from nonhierarchical boundary-work. Unlike non-hierarchical boundary-work, which merely marks and reproduces social differences, hierarchical boundary-work represents and reproduces unequal social categorizations. Focusing on the enactment of dietary identity, I argue that vegetarians conduct a type of hierarchical boundary-work to represent their selfidentification as “the second best” in the triadic constellation. I detail four ways in which vegetarians conduct the-second-best boundary-work; moreover, I also show that hierarchical boundary-work in general and the-second-best boundary-work in particular can be used to examine the management, maintenance and reproduction of selfidentification in various social communities.
Recent research has pointed to the rise of socially conscious consumption and of lifestyle movements or social movements that focus on changing one's everyday lifestyle choices as a form of protest. Much of this research addresses how adults maintain socially conscious consumption practices. Using interviews with youths who are vegan—strict vegetarians who exclude all animal products from their diet and lifestyle—I isolate the factors influencing recruitment into and retention of veganism as a lifestyle movement. I show that initial recruitment requires learning, reflection, and identity work, and that subsequent retention requires two factors: social support from friends and family, and cultural tools that provide the skills and motivation to maintain lifestyle activism. I also show how participation in the punk subculture further facilitated these processes. This work contributes to studies of youth subcultures and social movements by showing how the two intersect in lifestyle movement activism.
Ethnographic work indicates that food transfer has social significance, but food transfer has not previously been considered as a nonverbal communication channel. We categorize social food transfer along two dimensions: nature of the behaviour in the transfer (X shares food with or feeds Y), and the state of the food transferred (Y's food never contacted by X, or Y's food previously bitten/tasted/touched by X; we call the latter food consubstantiation (shared substance)). These two dimensions generate the four conditions investigated in this study: no sharing, sharing, sharing with consubstantiation, and feeding. The social significance of these types of situations was assessed in two ways. American college students indicated in a questionnaire both the extent to which they transfer food within different relationships, and what they took to be normative among American college students. Second, a different group of students participated in an Asch impression study in which they observed a videotape of two young adults of opposite sex eating at a restaurant, with the variable across subjects being the four conditions designated above. Viewers were asked to assess the relationship between the young adults, and to rate the degree of intimacy between the adults in terms of mutual feelings and acts of intimacy (e.g. sharing drinks, touching, having sexual relations). Results from both studies are congruent, and indicate that sharing implies a positive/friendly social relationship, and feeding implies a stronger, often romantic relationship. Consubstantiation superimposed on sharing modestly increased judgments of intimacy and closeness of relationship. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
This paper uses quality theory to identify opportunities for the meat sector that are consistent with trends in meat consumption. Meat consumption has increased and is likely to continue into the future. Growth is largely driven by white meats, with poultry in particular of increasing importance globally. The influence of factors such as income and price is likely decline over time so that other factors, such as quality, will become more important. Quality is complex and consumers' quality expectations may not align with experienced quality due to misconception of certain intrinsic cues. Establishing relevant and effective cues, based on extrinsic and credence attributes, could offer advantage on the marketplace. The use of extrinsic cues can help convey quality characteristics for eating quality, but also for more abstract attributes that reflect individual consumer concerns e.g. health/nutrition, and collective concerns, e.g. sustainability. However, attributes are not of equal value to all consumers. Thus consumer segmentation and production differentiation is needed.
Meat eaters face dissonance whether it results from inconsistency ("I eat meat; I don't like to hurt animals"), aversive consequences ("I eat meat; Eating meat harms animals"), or threats to self image ("I eat meat; compassionate people don't hurt animals"). The present work proposes that there are a number of strategies that omnivores adopt to reduce this dissonance including avoidance, dissociation, perceived behavioral change, denial of animal pain, denial of animal mind, pro-meat justifications, reducing perceived choice, and actual behavioral change. The presence of vegetarians was speculated to cause meat eating to be a scrutinized behavior, remind meat eaters of their discomfort, and undermine the effectiveness of these strategies. It was therefore hypothesized that exposure to a description of a vegetarian would lead omnivores to embrace dissonance-reducing strategies. Supporting this hypothesis, participants who read a vignette about a vegetarian denied animal mind more than participants who read about a gluten-free individual. It was also hypothesized that omnivores would be sensitive to individual differences between vegetarians and would demonstrate using dissonance-reducing strategies more when the situation failed to provide cognitions consonant with eating meat or to reduce dissonant cognitions. Four experiments supported this prediction and found that authentic vegetarians, vegetarians freely making the decision to abandon meat, consistent vegetarians, and anticipating moral reproach from vegetarians produced greater endorsement of dissonance-reducing strategies than their counterpart conditions.
Contemporary families and food systems are both becoming more dynamic and complex, and current associations between adult family meals and body mass index (BMI) are not well understood. This investigation took a new approach by examining diverse settings and sources of food for family dinners in relationship to BMI in a cross-sectional nationally representative survey of 360 US adults age 18-85 living with family members. In this sample, 89% of adults ate family dinners at least 5 days per week and almost all ate family dinners cooked and eaten at home. About half of these adults also ate family dinners at restaurants, fast food places, or ate takeout food at home, and less common were family dinners at homes of relatives or friends. Family dinners eaten at fast food places, but not other settings or sources, were significantly associated with higher BMI. Overall, adult family dinners were commonplace, usually involved home cooking, and when at fast food places may be related with higher adult body weights.
Meat consumption patterns worldwide have dramatically changed over the past 50 years, putting pressure on the environment and leading – especially in industrialised and emerging countries – to unbalanced diets. Given demographic projections and foresight reports, the question is raised whether there are limits to the meat consumption. Based on data from 120 countries, this article analyses the evolution of meat consumption in general and the relationship between meat consumption and income in particular. The study shows evidence for an inverted U-shaped relationship between meat consumption and income, meaning that – at a certain level of income – average meat consumption will stagnate or even decline. The results can help policy makers to develop incentives for both environmental and health policies and offers stakeholders opportunities for further research and innovation.
Goffman’s concept of impression management, front stage/backstage, and face work are used to explain how the participants in this qualitative study engage in promoting veganism and vegetarianism to omnivores in daily interactions. The participants often feel silenced by stereotypes, misinformation, and conflict. They believe that this persistence of stereotypes is a psychological defense mechanism by omnivores to mask feelings of guilt. To manage this tension and present this cause in a positive light, vegetarians and vegans engage in “face-saving” techniques to protect both parties from attack and alienation. These include rejecting “in-your-face” confrontations and adopting preventative “face-saving” strategies such as avoiding confrontation, waiting for an appropriate time, focusing on health benefits, and leading by example.
Vegetarianism is a dynamic and fluid lifestyle that can be described as unique for each person who practices. Vegetarianism traditionally falls outside of the accepted eating patterns in Western nations; furthermore, the meat-free lifestyle can be classified as a form of positive deviance. Semistructured interviews were conducted with self-described vegetarians regarding eating patterns and motivations within the initial adoption of the lifestyle. Vegetarian vocabularies of motive were categorized according to established deviance theory referred to as accounts. This newly practicing, or developmental, stage of vegetarianism was more likely to fall on the less strict side of the vegetarian continuum for eating patterns and the motives had a propensity to be monothematic.
Two experiments investigated the moderation of behavioral mimicry effects as a function of the to-be-mimicked target. In each experiment participants completed an ice cream taste test in the presence of a confederate who was instructed to either eat a lot of ice cream (high consumption condition) or very little ice cream (low consumption condition). The extent to which participants mimicked the ice cream consumption of the confederate was recorded. In addition two confederates were employed; one of the confederates in each experiment had a visual stigma. In Experiment 1 the confederate was either obese or not. In Experiment 2 the confederate had, or did not have, a facial birthmark. Results showed mimicry of the confederate's ice cream consumption except for the obese confederate in Experiment 1. Stigmatization of the to-be-mimicked target does inhibit mimicry effects but only when the nature of the Stigmatization is linked to the critical task. Results are discussed in terms of non-conscious elicitation and inhibition of behavior. Implications for social interaction are also discussed.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the dominance of an ascetic discourse of veg*anism in social research literature, and to relate it to a dominant hierarchical ordering of Western diets (to refer collectively to veganism and vegetarianism).
Design/methodology/approach
A review of the extant social research literature on veg*anism was undertaken in order to discern whether a consistent type of descriptive language existed. This facilitated an understanding of the way in which that language is constitutive of research generated understandings of veg*anism.
Findings
An ascetic discourse of veg*anism is dominant in social research. This is reflected in the phraseology used by authors. Typical descriptive terms of a veg*an diet include “strict”, “restrictive”, or “avoidance”. This ascetic discourse reproduces the hierarchical ordering of Western diets such that veg*anism is denigrated and made to seem “difficult” and abnormal.
Research limitations/implications
Veg*anism arguably promises multiple benefits for human, environmental, and nonhuman animal well‐being. The potential to realize those benefits is hampered by the perpetuation of an understanding of veg*anism as an ascetic practice.
Originality/value
This paper provides the first comprehensive examination of the language used to describe veg*anism within social research. It can enhance reflexivity on the part of social researchers interested in veg*anism, and help inform research design. In providing an alternative hedonic discourse of veg*anism, this paper also makes a contribution towards realizing the potential benefits of veg*anism through making it a more attractive dietary practice.
In spite of a growing body of vegetarian literature, there remains a lack of information about how people learn to become vegan. Using qualitative methodology, this research identified a psychological process of how people learn about and adopt veganism. Elements of the process include who I was, catalytic experiences, possible repression of information, an orientation to learn, the decision, learning about veganism, and acquiring a vegan world view. Noteworthy observations include individual and temporal variation in the use of logic and emotion, the centrality of reading, the repression and recollection of undesirable information, and the importance of two types of learning tasks to successful vegans.
How do activists create cultural change? Scholars have investigated the development and maintenance of collective identities as one avenue for cultural change, but to understand how activists foster change beyond their own movements, we need to look at activists’ strategies for changing their targets’ mindsets and actions. Sociologists need to look at activists’ boundary work to understand both the wide-sweeping goals and strategies that activists enact to generate broad-based cultural changes. Using data from participant observation and interviews with animal rights activists in France and the United States, and drawing on research on ethnic boundary shifting, I show how activists used two main strategies to shift symbolic boundaries between humans and animals, as well as between companion and farm animals—(1) they blur boundaries through focusing and universalizing strategies and (2) they cross boundaries physically, discursively, and iconographically. This study contributes a new theoretical and empirical example to the cultural changes studied by scholars of social movements, and it also provides a useful counterpoint to studies of symbolic boundary construction and maintenance in the sociology of culture.
Sharing meals together, both in terms of their social construction and the social rules which govern behaviour, is thought to be the essence of our sociality. Teaching and Learning about Food and Nutrition in Schools (reported by Burgess and Morrison in 1995) is an ESRC funded project, which, as part of the Nation's Diet Programme: The Social Science of Food Choice investigated food use and eating in schools. Prior to the project social scientists had seldom focused upon the social and educational contexts in which children and young people learned about food as classroom activity, as routinised eating in schools, or at the interface between home and school. It is at the meeting point of such interests that this paper on the social significance of eating together is framed. Interview and diary data from parents, ‘dinner ladies’ and pupils, in combination with research observations, are used to explore familial perspectives on the changing relationship between eating at home and school in two primary school case studies. The discussion of school eating arrangements highlights the complex issues underpinning the advocacy of school meals, not only in terms of nutritional impact but also in relation to the cross-cutting effects of institutional practice, socio-economic advantage and disadvantage, and cultural preference. The alleged decline of the ‘proper’ shared meal is also contested. Rather, the data show commensality being produced and reproduced in different forms.
The terms ‘vegansexuality’ and ‘vegansexuals’ entered popular discourse following substantial media interest in a New Zealand-based academic study on ethical consumption that noted that some vegans engaged in sexual relationships and intimate partnerships only with other vegans. At this time it was suggested that a spectrum existed in relation to cruelty-free consumption and sexual relationships: at one end of this spectrum, a form of sexual preference influenced by veganism entailed an increased likelihood of sexual attraction towards those who shared similar beliefs regarding the exploitation of non-human animals; at the other end of the spectrum such a propensity might manifest as a strong sexual aversion to the bodies of those who consume meat and other animal products. The extensive media hype about (and public response to) vegansexuality was predominantly negative and derogatory towards ‘vegansexuals’ and vegans/vegetarians. A particular aggression was evident in online comments by those positioned as heterosexual meat-eating men. In this article we examine the hostile responses to vegansexuality and veganism posted by such men on internet news and journalism sites, personal blogs and chatrooms. We argue that the rhetoric associated with this backlash constructs vegansexuals — and vegans more generally — as (sexual) losers, cowards, deviants, failures and bigots. Furthermore, we suggest that the vigorous reactions of self-identified omnivorous men demonstrate how the notion of alternative sexual practices predicated on the refusal of meat culture radically challenges the powerful links between meat-eating, masculinity and virility in western societies.
Social movement scholars have long studied actors' mobilization into and continued involvement in social movement organizations. A more recent trend in social movement literature concerns cultural activism that takes place primarily outside of social movement organizations. Here I use the vegan movement to explore modes of participation in such diffuse cultural movements. As with many cultural movements, there are more practicing vegans than there are members of vegan movement organizations. Using data from ethnographic interviews with vegans, this article focuses on vegans who are unaffiliated with a vegan movement organization. The sample contains two distinctive groups of vegans – those in the punk subculture and those who were not – and investigates how they defined and practiced veganism differently. Taking a relational approach to the data, I analyze the social networks of these punk and non-punk vegans. Focusing on discourse, support, and network embeddedness, I argue that maintaining participation in the vegan movement depends more upon having supportive social networks than having willpower, motivation, or a collective vegan identity. This study demonstrates how culture and social networks function to provide support for cultural movement participation.
In 1995 we recruited twenty-two heterosexual couples from Edinburgh and Glasgow to examine the changes which took place in their eating habits and food related activities when they began to live together. Semi-structured interviews were carried out three months before and after moving-in dates and on each occasion both men and women were interviewed separately. Both felt that eating together had a symbolic importance when they set up home together and most couples made efforts to eat a main meal together most evenings, while shopping and eating patterns tended to become more regular and formalised than they were at the pre-marriage/cohabitation stage. In a small majority of cases the women were mainly responsible for buying and preparing food. A significant difference between these women and those of other, earlier studies is that they tended to be less deferential to their husbands’ food choices. However, associations between women, food and nurturing were evident in the efforts women made to improve their husbands’ diets. Where food purchase and preparation were shared, so was choice of food. The goal of enjoying food together was achieved by learning, influence and compromise but no significant gendering of power in food choice was identified.
This paper reports on the findings from research into the relationship between eating occasions, location and meal construction. It draws on data collected from two convenience samples—British students and Australian students—and examines what they selected as appropriate foods for certain eating occasions (lunch, dinner, and snack) while constrained by physical location. In the present study, we sought to explore ways of dealing with the complex volume of data created when studying meals and food choice using a mixture of correspondence, cluster, and discriminate analysis. The study illustrates the utility of this approach for dealing with complex data and the analysis reveals the complexity between eating occasions, location and food choice.