School of Psychology, University of Kent, UK.
Department of Psychology, University of Bradford, UK.
Appetite. 2024 Apr 1;195:107232. doi: 10.1016/j.appet.2024.107232. Epub 2024 Jan 28.
Plant-based diets are quickly gaining popularity for their benefits to animal welfare, the environment, and public health. Compared to meat-eaters, meat-abstainers such as vegetarians and vegans are especially motivated by animal rights and the environment. However, little is known about the motivational and psychological factors that distinguish vegetarians from vegans, and what prevents vegetarians to shift towards a fully plant-based diet. In a sample of vegans (n = 335) and vegetarians (n = 182), we investigated a) motives for reducing or quitting meat consumption and b) motives for reducing or quitting animal product (dairy and egg products) consumption, as well as moral psychological and social-contextual factors that may explain potential differences. Results demonstrate that vegetarians and vegans tend to be similar in their motives to abstain from meat consumption and are most strongly motivated by animal rights. However, vegetarians are less motivated by health, environmental, and especially animal rights for dairy/egg reduction compared to meat reduction and compared to vegans. Lower moral concern for animals, stronger beliefs in human supremacy over animals, and heightened veganism threat among vegetarians (vs. vegans) partly explained why vegetarians were less strongly motivated by animal rights for dairy/egg reduction. Human supremacy beliefs also explained differences between vegetarians and vegans in health and environmental motives for dairy/egg reduction. Furthermore, vegetarians reported significantly less social support for plant-based diets and perceived more practical barriers to plant-based diets than vegans. These findings reveal meaningful differences in the motivational and psychological profiles of vegetarians and vegans and highlight the value of distinguishing between motives for meat-free diets and motives for plant-based diets.
植物性饮食因其对动物福利、环境和公共健康的益处而迅速受到欢迎。与肉食者相比，素食者和严格素食者（如素食主义者和纯素食主义者）尤其受到动物权利和环境的驱动。然而，对于区分素食者和严格素食者的动机和心理因素，以及是什么阻止素食者转向完全植物性饮食，人们知之甚少。在一个纯素食者（n=335）和素食者（n=182）的样本中，我们调查了 a）减少或停止肉类消费的动机，以及 b）减少或停止动物产品（奶制品和蛋类产品）消费的动机，以及可能解释潜在差异的道德心理和社会背景因素。结果表明，素食者和严格素食者在减少肉类消费的动机上往往相似，并且最强烈的动机是动物权利。然而，与减少肉类消费相比，素食者减少奶制品/蛋类消费的动机较弱，特别是健康、环境和动物权利方面的动机较弱，而与纯素食者相比，动物权利方面的动机较弱。素食者对动物的道德关注较低，对人类凌驾于动物之上的信念较强，以及对纯素食主义威胁的感知较强（与纯素食者相比），这在一定程度上解释了为什么素食者减少奶制品/蛋类消费的动机较弱。人类至上的信念也解释了素食者和严格素食者在健康和环境方面减少奶制品/蛋类消费的动机差异。此外，素食者报告说，他们获得的植物性饮食社会支持明显较少，并且认为植物性饮食面临的实际障碍比纯素食者多。这些发现揭示了素食者和严格素食者在动机和心理特征方面的有意义差异，并强调了区分无肉饮食动机和植物性饮食动机的重要性。
