The effects of dissociation on willingness to eat meat are moderated by exposure to unprocessed meat: A cross-cultural demonstration
Section snippets
Exposure to unprocessed meat as potential moderator of the effects of dissociation
In many parts of the world, people are steadily less involved in the production of meat and this seems to be especially the case in more developed societies (e.g., in many Western countries; Foer, 2010, Leroy and Praet, 2017). The increasing industrialized production of meat and the greater division of labor has created a larger distance between the average consumer and the production process itself (Leroy and Degreef, 2015, Magdoff et al., 2000). In developed countries and big industrialized
Exposure to unprocessed meat in the US and Ecuador
The annual meat consumption of US Americans is estimated to 91.7 kg per person of which 20.8 kg are pork (OECD, 2014). With factory farming being the most common way of producing meat (Foer, 2010), the US is a good example of a culture where the meat-production process has been largely distanced from the consumer. This production process creates convenient products to suit consumer demands while minimizing the degree to which the meat resembles the former animal. Moreover, due to a fast food
The present research
The purpose of the present research was to experimentally investigate whether culturally variant exposure to unprocessed meat moderates the effects that dissociation has on willingness to eat meat. Specifically, building on recent research by Kunst and Hohle (2016), we presented participants living in a country where exposure to unprocessed meat is less common (i.e., the US) and participants living in a country where such exposure is relatively common (i.e., Ecuador) with a pork roast. This
Participants
Ecuadorian sample. In total 202 Ecuadorian participants were recruited through snowball sampling on social online networks. The research was described as dealing with “food habits” (“habitos alimenticios”). The average age was 26.8 years (SD = 9.07) and gender was relatively equally distributed (women: 58%; men: 42%). Asked about their ethnicity, 90.7% reported to be Mestizo, 7.1% White/Caucasian, 1.6% Indigenous, and 0.5% reported other ethnic backgrounds. While 94% of the participants
Results
As expected, participants from Ecuador reported a substantially higher exposure to meat products that still show the animal's head, M = 2.63, SD = 1.96, than participants from the US did, M = 0.87, SD = 1.28; t(304.71) = 10.11, p < 0.001, 95% CI of the difference [1.42, 2.11], Cohen's d = 1.06. This supported the expectation that participants from both cultures differed markedly in their exposure to unprocessed meat. For exploratory reasons, we tested whether participants differed in their
Discussion
Recent research suggested that dissociating meat from its animal origins might be a powerful way for consumers to deal with the cognitive dissonance stemming from liking meat but disliking causing pain to animals (Kunst and Hohle, 2016, Rothgerber, 2013, Rothgerber, 2014). The present cross-cultural study nuances this observation: While dissociation seems to affect willingness to eat meat across cultures to some extent, it does so especially in societies where consumers are less exposed to
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Both authors contributed equally to the research.