Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.
Leibniz Institute for Resilience Research Mainz, Mainz, Germany.
PLoS One. 2022 Jun 8;17(6):e0268896. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0268896. eCollection 2022.
Most research examining individuals who follow different diets has combined vegetarians and vegans into a single group. To investigate whether this consolidation is justified, we analyzed possible differences between vegetarians and vegans for the Big Five personality traits in two studies. In our pre-study, we used data from a German convenience sample of 400 vegetarians and 749 vegans and found that vegans reported slightly higher scores in Openness compared to vegetarians (d = 0.22). In the preregistered main study, we used data provided by 1203 vegetarians and 128 vegans from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study; we found that vegetarians reported slightly higher scores in Neuroticism compared to vegans (d = 0.18) but did not differ in Openness. We found no differences in Conscientiousness, Extraversion, or Agreeableness in either study. Controlling for the socio-demographic variables of age, gender, and socio-economic status did not alter the pattern of results. Overall, these results suggest that there are no or only small differences in Openness or Neuroticism between vegetarians and vegans. Further studies utilizing very large, representative samples are needed to better understand the relationship between personality and diet groups.
大多数研究将不同饮食方式的个体进行合并，归入素食者和纯素食者这一单一群体中。为了探究这种合并是否合理，我们在两项研究中分析了素食者和纯素食者在五大人格特质方面可能存在的差异。在我们的预研究中，我们使用了来自德国便利样本的 400 名素食者和 749 名纯素食者的数据，发现纯素食者在开放性方面的得分略高于素食者（d = 0.22）。在预先注册的主要研究中，我们使用了来自德国社会经济面板研究的 1203 名素食者和 128 名纯素食者提供的数据；我们发现素食者在神经质方面的得分略高于纯素食者（d = 0.18），但在开放性方面没有差异。在责任心、外向性或宜人性方面，我们在这两项研究中都没有发现差异。控制年龄、性别和社会经济地位等社会人口统计学变量并不能改变结果模式。总的来说，这些结果表明，素食者和纯素食者在开放性或神经质方面没有差异，或者只有很小的差异。需要进一步利用非常大的、有代表性的样本进行研究，以更好地了解人格和饮食群体之间的关系。
