‘Meating’ the animal and moral emotions: Exploring animal caring and cruelty appeals for dietary change

Abstract

In modern Western societies, consumers are often disconnected from the animal origins of meat, which facilitates meat consumption by reducing empathy towards animals, and feelings of disgust and guilt. Conversely, animal advocates may appeal to meat’s animal origins to evoke moral emotions that discourage meat consumption. This preregistered study investigated the effectiveness of such meat-animal reminders among 421 meat-eating participants from the UK, recruited via Prolific. Participants were randomly exposed to one of three images: a pork chop without animal reminder (control condition), a pork chop paired with a human petting a pig (animal caring appeal) or paired with a human stunning a pig before slaughter (animal cruelty appeal). Based on harm-based accounts of moral judgment, we measured moral emotions oriented to the pig victim (e.g., empathy, sadness), the human perpetrator (e.g., anger, disgust) and the self (e.g., guilt, shame), and examined their effects on participants’ willingness to change pork chop consumption and tendency to justify pork-eating. ANOVA analysis revealed that both animal appeals (vs. control) increased moral emotions, while mediation analyses indicated that these emotions indirectly decreased pork-eating justification and increased willingness for dietary change. The animal cruelty appeal seemed particularly effective by evoking perpetrator- and victim-oriented emotions. However, we also found evidence of counteractive effects on pork-eating justification and willingness for dietary change once moral emotions were controlled for, suggesting moral disengagement. Hedonic motivations to eat meat remain a significant barrier. Future research should further explore interventions that enable consumers to translate moral concerns into lasting dietary change.