The London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK.
Technological University, Dublin, Ireland.
Sci Rep. 2024 Oct 16;14(1):24262. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-74479-1.
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.
社交场合可能会给那些试图减少或避免吃肉的人带来挑战。在一项针对 1117 名英国肉食者的大型代表性样本的实验性情景研究中，我们探讨了对素食餐请求的情感反应以及对提出请求的人的看法，这些看法涉及四种社交情景：烧烤、酒吧、餐厅晚餐和晚宴。我们研究了这些看法的调节因素，包括请求者是否将自己描述为素食者或限制肉类摄入者，以及他们是否出于健康、环境或其他原因提出请求。总体而言，我们发现这些调节因素对肉食者对请求者的看法的影响大于对他们对请求的情感反应的影响。我们还发现，这些结果受到动机提及的影响比饮食类型更大。突出的发现包括有证据表明，那些出于环境原因要求素食餐的人受到的负面评价更多，而那些出于健康原因要求素食餐的人受到的正面评价更多。我们还发现，在受访者的肉类依恋程度上存在很大的差异：那些对肉类依恋程度较高的人对素食餐请求者的看法更为负面，对请求的负面情绪更高，正面情绪更低。
