A two-country study shows that people who don’t eat meat place less emphasis on building personal relationships and independent thinking and success are key tenets of their social values.
Vegetarians have a different worldview from meat-eaters, though not necessarily in the way you think.
Yes, people who don’t eat meat tend to be more sensitive to the pain and suffering of animals and threats to the environment, but their awareness does not reflect the “basic human value of benevolence”, or at least a certain definition of it, according to a new study. Instead, vegetarians are independent thinkers who value personal choice and possess more grit than omnivores.
“Vegetarians hold values consistent with being members of a social minority who are willing to stand by their principles,” John B Nezlek, a psychology professor at the College of William and Mary, wrote in the Plos One journal.
How do the values of vegetarians and meat-eaters differ?
Nezlek conducted three surveys, one in the US and two in Poland, whose responses were valued against the Portrait Values Questionnaire developed by social psychologist Shalom Schwartz.
The questionnaire measures 10 “basic human values”, including benevolence (defined as the enhancement of the welfare of people’s loved ones), security (safety, harmony, and stability of society, relationships, and oneself), conformity (restraining from actions that upset social norms), and self-direction (valuing independent thought and action).
In each study, participants were asked to rate each value on a six-point scale, ranging from “not like me at all” (a score of 1) and “very much like me” (a score of 6).
Vegetarians in both the US and Poland placed greater importance on achievement (an indicator of personal success), power (control over resources), and stimulation (seeking excitement and challenges) than omnivores.
On the other hand, meat-free consumers rated benevolence, security, and conformity as less important. They’re also less likely to value tradition, although the difference was only statistically significant in Poland.
“Within most Western contexts, vegetarianism is not traditional, and so vegetarians should be less likely to endorse traditional values than omnivores, who follow a traditional diet,” explained Nezlek. “Vegetarians do not conform to the normative omnivorous diet, so they should endorse conformity values less strongly than omnivores.”
The only value exhibiting a difference in opinions between the two countries was self-direction. In the US, this value is more important for non-vegetarians, and the opposite is true in Poland.
Why vegetarians think the way they do
According to Nezlek, the results suggest that being vegetarian “represents a manifestation of values that emphasise independence and individuality, a possibility that is somewhat at odds with how vegetarianism is often discussed”.
He explained that vegetarians are a minority, and so can be seen by omnivores as individuals who have “explicitly rejected the majority diet and the values for which it stands”. Such thinking breeds perceptions that vegetarians pose a threat to society and its way of life.
“In the face of such beliefs and in the face of the experiences of rejection and criticism that may accompany the expression of such beliefs, vegetarians need to be committed and hold their beliefs strongly. This strength is reflected in the fact that vegetarians view their diets as a more important part of their sense of self than omnivores do.”
The study comes months after research found that while vegans are seen as more climate-friendly and health-conscious with high moral standards, they elicit more fear, contempt, envy and anger than meat-eaters.
It’s important to note that the study only focused on two high-income countries in the West. “It is not certain how the present results might generalise to other cultural groups, [like] South or Latin America or Asia,” said Nezlek.
Additionally, it’s unclear how the results will vary when factoring in more specific dietary preferences, like those who don’t eat red meat or follow a pescetarian diet. The study wasn’t designed to examine these groups.
Nevertheless, it provides an interesting look into the psyche of vegetarians and non-vegetarians. “Although Schwartz’s model suggests that values are causes of behaviours such as dietary habits, is this necessarily the case? Perhaps people adopt vegetarian diets and then their values change,” Nezlek theorised.
The post Vegetarians Tend to Be More Nonconformist, Less Benevolent Than Meat-Eaters: Study appeared first on Green Queen.
This post was originally published on Green Queen.