A new study shows that people who favour plant-based meat alternatives are seen as environmentally friendly, health-conscious people who adhere to high moral standards and are worthy of admiration, but they also elicit fear, contempt, and anger in meat-eaters, who as a result socially exclude and even show aggression toward them. It is believed that this is because meat-eaters feel bad when they see vegans making positive changes that they have not made themselves, so they become defensive.
The study, titled “Meat Alternative Consumers Still Frowned upon in Europe: Analysis of Stereotypical, Emotional and Behavioral Responses of Observing Others,” and authored by Roosa-Maaria Malila, Kyosti Pennanen, and Harri T. Luomala from the University of Vaasa, School of Marketing and Communication, Finland, aimed to reveal the stereotypical beliefs, emotional responses, and behavioural tendencies that consumers of meat alternatives evoke in observers.
Roosa-Maaria Malila said to The Times, “When seeing others apply more sustainable ways of consuming food, eg consuming meat alternatives, which still feels like something unknown for the individual, it can evoke negative emotions — anger, contempt, fear and envy”
For the study, published in the journal Food Quality and Preference, researchers asked 3,600 people from four European countries to evaluate people who eat plant-based food. In particular, they asked 900 people from the UK, 900 from Finland, 900 from Germany and 900 from Sweden to evaluate a fictional consumer based on their shopping list that contained either meatballs and sausage (the meat shopper), chicken balls and vegetarian sausage (the flexible shopper), or plant-protein balls and vegetarian sausage (the meat-alternative shopper). The participants were asked to report how they thought the “average person views this person”.
The results showed that the meat-alternative consumer was viewed as more “competent” but less “warm”, whilst the shopper buying only meat provoked the least contempt but was the least admired. Unsurprisingly, most participants said that they were “more inclined to consider harming” the meat-alternative shopper than the meat-eating shopper (as they were also meat-eaters themselves). The meat-eating shopper was rated lowest for environmental friendliness and health orientation, while the meat-alternative consumer was rated the highest. The “flexible” shopper was “not envied, but considered more socially approachable.”
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