Similarities and differences between vegetarians and vegans in motives for meat-free and plant-based diets.

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.

Are we smart enough to remember how smart animals are?

Some theoretical perspectives suggest people overestimate animals' mental capacities (anthropomorphism), while others suggest the reverse (mind-denial). However, studies have generally not employed objective criteria against which the accuracy or appropriateness of people's judgments about animals can be tested. We employed memory paradigms, in which judgments are clearly right or wrong, in nine experiments (eight preregistered; n = 3,162). When tested shortly after exposure, meat-eaters' memory about companion animals (e.g., dogs) but not food animals (e.g., pigs) showed an anthropomorphic bias: they remembered more information consistent with animals having versus lacking a mind (Experiments 1-4). Vegetarians' and vegans' memory, on the other hand, consistently showed an anthropomorphic bias regarding food and companion animals alike (Experiments 5 and 6). When tested a week after exposure, both those who eat meat and those who do not showed signs of shifting toward a mind-denying bias (Experiments 2, 3, and 6). These biases had important consequences for beliefs about animal minds. Inducing mind-denying memory biases caused participants to see animals as possessing less sophisticated minds (Experiments 7-9). The work demonstrates that memories concerning animals' minds can depart predictably from reality and that such departures can contribute to biased evaluations of their mental capacities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Intergroup contact is reliably associated with reduced prejudice, even in the face of group threat and discrimination.

Intergroup contact provides a reliable means of reducing prejudice. Yet, critics suggested that its efficacy is undermined, even eliminated, under certain conditions. Specifically, contact may be ineffective in the face of threat, especially to (historically) advantaged groups, and discrimination, experienced especially by (historically) disadvantaged groups. We considered perceived intergroup threat and perceived discrimination as potential moderators of the effect of contact on prejudice. Two meta-analyses of correlational data from 34 studies (totaling 63,945 respondents-drawn from 67 subsamples across 19 countries) showed that contact was associated with decreased prejudice and increased out-group positivity, in cross-sectional and longitudinal designs, among advantaged and disadvantaged group members, and in both Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) and non-WEIRD contexts. Both perceived threat and perceived discrimination moderated the contact-attitude association, but in an unanticipated direction. Indeed, contact's beneficial effects were at least as strong among individuals high (r = .19) as among individuals low (r = .18) in perceived threat. Similarly, the effects of contact were at least as strong among those high (r = .23) as among those low (r = .20) in perceived discrimination. We conclude that contact is effective for promoting tolerant societies because it is effective even among subpopulations where achieving that goal might be most challenging. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Changing minds about minds: Evidence that people are too sceptical about animal sentience.

Our relationships with other animals are governed by how we view their capacity for sentience and suffering. However, there is currently little agreement as to whether people's beliefs about animal minds are largely accurate or inaccurate. We used an innovative task to examine how people update their beliefs in response to noisy but informative clues about animal minds. This allowed us to compare participants' posterior beliefs to what a normative participant ought to believe if they conform to Bayes' theorem. Five studies (four pre-registered; n = 2417) found that participants shifted their beliefs too far in response to clues that suggested animals do not have minds (i.e., overshooting what a normative participant ought to believe), but not far enough in response to clues that suggested animals have minds (i.e., falling short of what a normative participant ought to believe). A final study demonstrated that this effect was attenuated when humans were the targets of belief. The findings demonstrate that people underestimate animal minds in a way that can be said to be inaccurate and highlight the role of belief updating in downplaying evidence of animal minds. The findings are discussed in relation to speciesist beliefs about the supremacy of humans over animals.

Speciesism in everyday language.

Speciesism, like other forms of prejudice, is thought to be underpinned by biased patterns of language use. Thus far, however, psychological science has primarily focused on how speciesism is reflected in individuals' thoughts as opposed to wider collective systems of meaning such as language. We present a large-scale quantitative test of speciesism by applying machine-learning methods (word embeddings) to billions of English words derived from conversation, film, books, and the Internet. We found evidence of anthropocentric speciesism: words denoting concern (vs. indifference) and value (vs. valueless) were more closely associated with words denoting humans compared to many other animals. We also found evidence of companion animal speciesism: the same words were more closely associated with words denoting companion animals compared to most other animals. The work describes speciesism as a pervasive collective phenomenon that is evident in a naturally occurring expression of human psychology - everyday language.

Unpalatable truths: Commitment to eating meat is associated with strategic ignorance of food-animal minds.

Animal minds are of central importance to debates about their rights and welfare. Remaining ignorant of evidence that animals have minds is therefore likely to facilitate their mistreatment. Studying samples of adults and students from the UK and US we found that, consistent with motivational perspectives on meat consumption, those who were more (vs. less) committed to eating meat were more motivated to avoid exposure to information about food-animals' sentience (Studies 1), showed less interest in exposure to articles about intelligent food animals (Studies 2a and 2b), and were quicker to terminate exposure to internet pop-ups containing information about food-animals' minds (Studies 3a and 3b). At the same time, those who were more (vs. less) committed to eating meat approached information about companion-animals' minds (Studies 2a-3b) and unintelligent food animals (Studies 2a and 2b) in largely the same ways. The findings demonstrate that, within the UK and US, the desire to eat meat is associated with strategies to avoid information that is likely to challenge meat consumption.

Psychological Science in the Wake of COVID-19: Social, Methodological, and Metascientific Considerations.

The COVID-19 pandemic has extensively changed the state of psychological science from what research questions psychologists can ask to which methodologies psychologists can use to investigate them. In this article, we offer a perspective on how to optimize new research in the pandemic's wake. Because this pandemic is inherently a social phenomenon-an event that hinges on human-to-human contact-we focus on socially relevant subfields of psychology. We highlight specific psychological phenomena that have likely shifted as a result of the pandemic and discuss theoretical, methodological, and practical considerations of conducting research on these phenomena. After this discussion, we evaluate metascientific issues that have been amplified by the pandemic. We aim to demonstrate how theoretically grounded views on the COVID-19 pandemic can help make psychological science stronger-not weaker-in its wake.

The role of meat appetite in willfully disregarding factory farming as a pandemic catalyst risk.

Most infectious diseases are zoonotic, "jumping" from animals to humans, with COVID-19 no exception. Although many zoonotic transmissions occur on industrial-scale factory farms, public discussions mainly blame wild animal ("wet") markets or focus on reactionary solutions, posing a psychological obstacle to preventing future pandemics. In two pre-registered studies early in the 2020 pandemic, we examined whether British adults fail to recognize factory farming in causing epidemics, and whether such dismissal represents motivated cognition. Cross-sectional data (Study 1, N = 302) confirmed that people blame factory farms and global meat consumption less than wild animal trade and consumption or lack of government preparedness, especially among meat-committed persons. Experimental exposure (Study 2, N = 194) to information blaming factory farms (vs. wild animal markets) produced lower endorsement of preventive solutions than of reactionary solutions, which was exacerbated among meat-committed persons. These findings suggest that people, especially those highly committed to eating meat, willfully disregard solutions targeting animal agriculture and global meat consumption to prevent future pandemics precisely because such solutions implicate their dietary habits. Better understanding motivated beliefs about the causes of and solutions to pandemics is critical for developing interventions.

Intergroup contact, social dominance, and environmental concern: A test of the cognitive-liberalization hypothesis.

Intergroup contact is among the most effective ways to improve intergroup attitudes. Although it is now beyond any doubt that contact can reduce prejudice, in this article we provide evidence that its benefits can extend beyond intergroup relations-a process referred to as cognitive liberalization (Hodson, Crisp, Meleady, & Earle, 2018). We focus specifically on the impact of intergroup contact on environmentally relevant attitudes and behavior. Recent studies suggest that support for an inequality-based ideology (social dominance orientation [SDO]) can predict both intergroup attitudes and broader environmental conduct. Individuals higher in SDO are more willing to exploit the environment in unsustainable ways because doing so aids the production and maintenance of hierarchical social structures. In 4 studies conducted with British adults, we show that by promoting less hierarchical and more egalitarian viewpoints (reduced SDO), intergroup contact encourages more environmentally responsible attitudes and behavior. Both cross-sectional and longitudinal data support this model. Effects are more strongly explained by reductions in an antiegalitarian motive than a dominance motive. We discuss how these findings help define an expanded vision for intergroup contact theory that moves beyond traditional conflict-related outcomes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

The Diversity Challenge for High and Low Authoritarians: Multilevel and Longitudinal Effects Through Intergroup Contact and Threat.

The current studies integrate different frameworks on the positive and negative consequences of ethnic diversity for intergroup relations. Using a nationally stratified sample of Dutch majority members ( N = 680) from 50 cities in the Netherlands, Study 1 demonstrated that objective diversity was indirectly related to prejudice and to generalized, ingroup, and outgroup trust, through more positive and more negative contact. These indirect effects tended to be stronger for high versus low authoritarians. Furthermore, perceived diversity was indirectly related to less trust and greater prejudice, via more negative contact and threat. Again, these associations were more pronounced among high authoritarians. Study 2, using a representative sample of German majority members ( N = 412) nested within 237 districts, replicated the cross-sectional results regarding objective diversity and prejudice. In addition, longitudinal analyses indicated that objective diversity predicted more positive and more negative contact 2 years later, though only among moderate and high authoritarians.

On Self-Love and Outgroup Hate: Opposite Effects of Narcissism on Prejudice via Social Dominance Orientation and Right-Wing Authoritarianism.

Previous research has obtained mixed findings as to whether feelings of self-worth are positively or negatively related to right-wing ideological beliefs and prejudice. We propose to clarify the link between self-worth and ideology by distinguishing between narcissistic and non-narcissistic self-evaluations as well as between different dimensions of ideological attitudes. Four studies, conducted in three different socio-political contexts: the UK (Study 1, N = 422), the US (Studies 2 and 3, Ns = 471 and 289, respectively), and Poland (Study 4, N = 775), investigated the associations between narcissistic and non-narcissistic self-evaluations, social dominance orientation (SDO), right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), and ethnic prejudice. Confirming our hypotheses, the results consistently showed that after controlling for self-esteem, narcissistic self-evaluation was positively associated with SDO (accounting for RWA), yet negatively associated with RWA (accounting for SDO). These associations were similar after controlling for psychopathy and Machiavellianism (Study 3) as well as collective narcissism and Big Five personality characteristics (Study 4). Studies 2-4 additionally demonstrated that narcissistic self-evaluation was indirectly positively associated with prejudice through higher SDO (free of RWA) but indirectly negatively associated with prejudice through lower RWA (free of SDO). Implications for understanding the role of self-evaluation in right-wing ideological attitudes and prejudice are discussed. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. European Journal of Personality published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Association of Personality Psychology.

Intergroup Contact and Social Change: Implications of Negative and Positive Contact for Collective Action in Advantaged and Disadvantaged Groups.

Previous research has shown that (a) positive intergroup contact with an advantaged group can discourage collective action among disadvantaged-group members and (b) positive intergroup contact can encourage advantaged-group members to take action on behalf of disadvantaged outgroups. Two studies investigated the effects of negative as well as positive intergroup contact. Study 1 ( n = 482) found that negative but not positive contact with heterosexual people was associated with sexual-minority students' engagement in collective action (via group identification and perceived discrimination). Among heterosexual students, positive and negative contacts were associated with, respectively, more and less LGB (lesbian, gay, bisexual) activism. Study 2 ( N = 1,469) found that only negative contact (via perceived discrimination) predicted LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) students' collective action intentions longitudinally while only positive contact predicted heterosexual/cisgender students' LGBT activism. Implications for the relationship between intergroup contact, collective action, and social change are discussed.

The personality basis of aggression: The mediating role of anger and the moderating role of emotional intelligence.

High neuroticism and low agreeableness have been found to predict higher levels of aggression through an increase of negative emotions such as anger. However, previous research has only investigated these indirect associations for physical aggression, whereas evidence for such indirect effects on other types of aggression (i.e., verbal or indirect aggression) is currently lacking. Moreover, no previous work has investigated the moderating role of Ability Emotional Intelligence (AEI), which may buffer against the effects of anger on aggression. The present study (N = 665) directly addresses these gaps in the literature. The results demonstrate that high neuroticism and low agreeableness were indirectly related to higher levels of physical, verbal, and indirect aggression via increased chronic accessibility to anger. Importantly however, the associations with physical aggression were significantly weaker for those higher (vs. lower) on AEI, confirming the buffering role of AEI. We discuss the implications of our findings for theoretical frameworks aiming to understand and reduce aggression and violent behavior.

The Relationships Between Internal and External Threats and Right-Wing Attitudes: A Three-Wave Longitudinal Study.

The interplay between threat and right-wing attitudes has received much research attention, but its longitudinal relationship has hardly been investigated. In this study, we investigated the longitudinal relationships between internal and external threats and right-wing attitudes using a cross-lagged design at three different time points in a large nationally representative sample (N = 800). We found evidence for bidirectional relationships. Higher levels of external threat were related to higher levels of Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and to both the egalitarianism and dominance dimensions of Social Dominance Orientation at a later point in time. Conversely, higher levels of RWA were also related to increased perception of external threat later in time. Internal threat did not yield significant direct or indirect longitudinal relationships with right-wing attitudes. Theoretical and practical implications of these longitudinal effects are discussed.

The relationship between right-wing ideological attitudes and psychological well-being.

The relationship between right-wing ideological attitudes and psychological well-being has been intensively studied. Although some studies supported the hypothesis that right-wing attitudes are negatively related with well-being, other research yielded positive or nonsignificant relationships. We conducted a meta-analysis (total samples = 97, total N = 69,221) of measures of well-being, including positive and negative affect, life satisfaction, self-esteem, and intrinsic goal pursuit. The obtained effect sizes were generally weak and nonsignificant, except for a moderate relationship between intrinsic goal pursuit and social dominance orientation. Our results thus do not support previous theories that claim that right-wing attitudes yield substantial relationships with psychological well-being.

Internal and external threat in relationship with right-wing attitudes.

OBJECTIVE: Previous studies on the relationship between threat and right-wing attitudes have tended to focus on either internal threat, emanating from one's private life, or external threat, originating from society. However, these studies failed to examine whether these types of threats constitute two distinctive dimensions and which of these threats is most closely related to right-wing attitudes. METHOD: In order to explore the dimensions underlying threat, a factor analysis on a variety of threat scales was conducted (Study 1; N = 300). Furthermore, in a meta-analysis (Study 2; total N = 22,086) and a questionnaire study in a large representative sample (Study 3, N = 800) the strength of the relationships of internal and external threat with right-wing attitudes were investigated. RESULTS: The present studies revealed that internal and external threat can be considered as two distinct dimensions underlying threat. Moreover, whereas external threat yielded strong relationships with right-wing attitudes, internal threat only explained a minor part of the variance in these attitudes. CONCLUSIONS: External rather than internal threat underlies the relationship between threat and right-wing attitudes.

A step into the anarchist's mind: examining political attitudes and ideology through event-related brain potentials.

The present study investigates patterns of event-related brain potentials following the presentation of attitudinal stimuli among political moderates (N=12) and anarchists (N=11). We used a modified oddball paradigm to investigate the evaluative inconsistency effect elicited by stimuli embedded in a sequence of contextual stimuli with an opposite valence. Increased late positive potentials (LPPs) of extreme political attitudes were observed. Moreover, this LPP enhancement was larger among anarchists than among moderates, indicating that an extreme political attitude of a moderate differs from an extreme political attitude of an anarchist. The discussion elaborates on the meaning of attitude extremity for moderates and extremists.

Longitudinal intergroup contact effects on prejudice using self- and observer-reports.

Longitudinal effects of intergroup contact on prejudice were investigated in a sample of 65 young adults (Sample 1) and a sample of their close friends (Sample 2, N= 172), adopting a full cross-lagged panel design. We first validated the self-report measure of intergroup contact from Sample 1 with observer ratings from Sample 2 by demonstrating that self-reports and observer ratings of contact were highly correlated. Moreover, we obtained significant cross-lagged effects of intergroup contact on prejudice with both contact measures, thereby providing a second validation for the use of self-reports of intergroup contact. Finally, by the use of latent change modelling, we demonstrated that, although no overall significant change in contact and prejudice over time was found, there was meaningful variation in absolute change in the individual levels of intergroup contact and prejudice. In particular, some individuals showed increases while others showed decreases in contact or prejudice across time. Moreover, higher levels of intergroup contact at Time 1 were followed by larger subsequent decreases in prejudice between Time 1 and Time 2, and changes in contact were significantly and negatively related to changes in prejudice. Methodological implications of the findings are discussed.

Opening closed minds: the combined effects of intergroup contact and need for closure on prejudice.

Five studies tested whether need for closure (NFC) moderates the relation between intergroup contact and prejudice toward immigrants. The results consistently showed that intergroup contact was more strongly associated with reduced levels of prejudice among people high in NFC compared to people low in NFC. Studies 1 (N = 138 students) and 2 (N = 294 adults) demonstrated this moderator effect on subtle, modern, and blatant racism. Study 2 also replicated the moderator effect for extended contact. An experimental field study (Study 3; N = 60 students) provided evidence of the causal direction of the moderator effect. Finally, Studies 4 (N = 125 students) and 5 (N = 135 adults) identified intergroup anxiety as the mediator through which the moderator effect influences modern and blatant racism as well as hostile tendencies toward immigrants. The role of motivated cognition in the relation between intergroup contact and prejudice is discussed.