Animal product consumer research
What interventions are most effective in changing attitudes and behaviour towards farmed animals?
This profile is tailored towards students studying economics, history, law, political sciences, psychology and cognitive sciences and sociology, however we expect there to be valuable open research questions that could be pursued by students in other disciplines.
Why is this a pressing problem?
Hundreds of billions of animals are used and slaughtered every year for food. This includes 70 billion land animals (of which chickens are the vast majority), an estimated 100 billion farmed fish and possibly several times as many wild caught fish, as well as billions of other animals such as crustaceans.
Most of these animals suffer lives of extreme confinement if they are farmed, and inhumane slaughter whether they are farmed or wild. The Sentience Institute estimates that in 2019, 99% of farmed land animals and fish in the US were in factory farms. These animals are particularly likely to experience untreated injuries, chronic infections, separation from their offspring and other severe constraints on their natural behaviours.
The use of farmed animals also poses risks to humans. Poor conditions lead to a higher prevalence of disease among farmed animals, which in turn increases the likelihood of pathogens passing from animals to humans and causing pandemics. Unhealthy animals require more antibiotics, potentially contributing to rising antimicrobial resistance in humans (although more research is needed to establish the size of this effect). The animal agriculture industry also has a significant environmental impact. It is responsible for about 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Animal agriculture also causes land degradation, increases water shortage problems and reduces biodiversity. Growing crops to feed them to farm animals rather than growing crops directly for human consumption is also vastly inefficient. By 2050, there will be nearly 10 billion people in the world to feed, and demand for animal products is expected to rise significantly. To produce enough food by 2050, we will need a more efficient system.
Despite the huge scale of these problems, the plight of animals utilised by humans for food receives comparatively little funding or attention from philanthropists and researchers. Encouraging people and institutions to reduce their use of animal products seems like a promising way to improve the world. There is generally less research into attitudes towards animals and animal product consumption in low- and middle-income countries. It could be particularly valuable to do further research on these countries, although as this post from Faunalytics describes, if you’re doing research on a culture you don’t have lived experience of, avoid practicing parachute science and learn about the culture you’re doing research on ‘from their own viewpoint by focusing on that literature and collaborating with scholars from the region.’
See here for an introduction to the importance of improving animal welfare, or listen to this 2017 podcast and the 2022 update from 80000 Hours with Lewis Bollard on the importance of ending factory farming. For an introduction to this area with a focus on corporate reform see the talk below.
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Meta-reviews
Grundy, Emily A. C., et al. (2022) Interventions that Influence Animal-Product Consumption: A Meta-Review, Future Foods
Mathur, Maya B., et al. (2021) Interventions to Reduce Meat Consumption by Appealing to Animal Welfare: Meta-Analysis and Evidence-Based Recommendations, Appetite
Institutional advocacy and change
Boronowsky, Renate Dorle, et al. (2022) Plant-Based Default Nudges Effectively Increase the Sustainability of Catered Meals on College Campuses: Three Randomized Controlled Trials, Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems
Garnett, Emma E., et al. (2019) Impact of Increasing Vegetarian Availability on Meal Selection and Sales in Cafeterias, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
What Is the Effect of Institutional Outreach on the Availability of Animal-Free Products? (2021), Animal Charity Evaluators
Which Institutional Tactics Can Animal Advocates Use? (2020), Sentience Institute
Understanding attitudes to animals and animal product consumption
Bastian, Brock & Steve Loughnan (2017) Resolving the Meat-Paradox: A Motivational Account of Morally Troublesome Behavior and Its Maintenance,
Caviola, Lucius, Jim A. C. Everett, & Nadira S. Faber (2019) The Moral Standing of Animals: Towards a Psychology of Speciesism, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Animal products and climate change
Graça, João, et al. (2015) Attached to Meat? (Un)Willingness and Intentions to Adopt a More Plant-Based Diet, Appetite
Grummon, Anna H., et al. (2022) Impact of Health, Environmental, and Animal Welfare Messages Discouraging Red Meat Consumption: An Online Randomized Experiment, Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
Jalil, Andrew, et al. (2022) Low-Cost Climate-Change Informational Intervention Reduces Meat Consumption among Students for Years
Individual diet change
Asher, Kathryn (2016) Is the Perfect the Enemy of the Good? The Role of Dietary Choices, Perceptions, and Experiences in Meat Consumption Patterns in the U.S. (doctoral dissertation) – see a summary by Faunalytics here.
Espinosa, Romain & Jan Stoop (2021) Do People Really Want to be Informed? Ex-Ante Evaluations of Information-Campaign Effectiveness, Experimental Economics
Haile, Menbere, et al. (2021) Changing Hearts and Plates: The Effect of Animal-Advocacy Pamphlets on Meat Consumption, Frontiers in Psychology
Mathur, Maya B., et al. (2021) Effectiveness of a Theory-Informed Documentary to Reduce Consumption of Meat and Animal Products: Three Randomized Controlled Experiments, Nutrients
Niemiec, Rebecca, et al. (2021) The Effectiveness of COVID-Related Message Framing on Public Beliefs and Behaviors Related to Plant-Based Diets, Appetite
Pauer, Shiva, et al. (2022) Meating Conflict: Toward a Model of Ambivalence-Motivated Reduction of Meat Consumption, Foods
Schwitzgebel, Eric, et al. (2021) Students Eat Less Meat after Studying Meat Ethics, Review of Philosophy and Psychology
PHAIR is a psychology journal focused on how people perceive, treat and interact with animals, that you could explore to find further research (and could consider publishing in if you do research on this topic!)
Books
Joy, Melanie (2009) Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows, Conari Press
Sunstein, Cass (2019) How Change Happens, The MIT press
Dhont, Kristof and Gordon Hodson (2019) Why We Love and Exploit Animals, Routledge
Singer, Peter (2011) The Expanding Circle, Princeton University Press
Singer, Peter (2023) Animal Liberation Now, Penguin
Herzog, Hal (2010) Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat, HarperCollins
Organisations
The SHARKLAB research group at the University of Kent, which is focused on ‘the processes leading to prejudiced and compassionate attitudes and behaviours towards non-human animals.’
The Sentience Institute, a think tank researching ‘long-term social and technological change, particularly moral circle expansion.’
The Credence Institute, a research institute focused on changing ‘attitudes and behaviours harmful to the interests of animals,’ particularly in South Africa.
The PHAIR Society, an organisation which ‘aims to advance and promote scientific research and education…related to how people perceive, treat, and interact with non-human animals’
The Tiny Beam Fund, which offers PhD funding and suggests directions for research.
Faunalytics, an organisation researching how animal advocacy can be as effective as possible.
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Effective animal advocacy resources from Rethink Priorities links to many suggestions for further reading, research repositories, blogs, conferences and more that can help you get started in this area.
Find supervision, mentorship and collaboration
To find support, collaborators and projects to get involved with, check out RECAP, a transdisciplinary community of researchers working on reducing animal product consumption and the organisations listed earlier in this profile, such as PHAIR and Faunalytics. This community of behavioural scientists is another way of connecting with researchers interested in this area. You could also contact Faunalytics during their virtual office hours for research advice.
Apply for our database of potential supervisors if you’re looking for formal supervision and take a look at our advice on finding a great supervisor for further ideas.
Newsletters
Sign up for our newsletter to hear about opportunities such as funding, internships and research roles.
But Can They Suffer is a monthly newsletter summarising research, news, jobs, grants, events and conferences related to effective animal advocacy.
The Animal Advocacy Bi-Weekly Digest is a bi-weekly newsletter summarising research and updates.
The EA behavioural science newsletter covers research, funding and job opportunities.
Find courses and funding
The Animal Advocacy Research Fund supports research related to increasing concern for animals and decreasing animal product consumption. You can view research the fund has supported here.
Contributors: This profile was last updated 14/06/2023. Thanks to Courtney Dillard, Andrea Polanco, Maya Mathur, Shiva Pauer and Josh Tasoff for helpful feedback on this profile. All errors remain our own. Learn more about how we create our profiles.
