The impact of explaining vegetarian meal requests on the affective responses and perceptions of meat eaters.


Journal

Scientific reports
ISSN: 2045-2322
Titre abrégé: Sci Rep
Pays: England
ID NLM: 101563288

Informations de publication

Date de publication:
16 10 2024
Historique:
received: 11 01 2024
accepted: 26 09 2024
medline: 17 10 2024
pubmed: 17 10 2024
entrez: 16 10 2024
Statut: epublish

Résumé

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.

Identifiants

pubmed: 39414849
doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-74479-1
pii: 10.1038/s41598-024-74479-1
doi:

Types de publication

Journal Article

Langues

eng

Sous-ensembles de citation

IM

Pagination

24262

Subventions

Organisme : European Commission
ID : 845342

Informations de copyright

© 2024. The Author(s).

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Auteurs

Kate Laffan (K)

The London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK. k.m.laffan@lse.ac.uk.

Emma Howard (E)

Technological University, Dublin, Ireland.

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