Abstract
Meat consumption significantly contributes to environmental damage. Thus, a reduction in meat consumption can be regarded as sustainable behavior. Based on the assumptions of the theory of planned behavior, we examined the predictive power of individuals’ attitudes, their subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control for their intention to reduce domestic meat consumption. We assessed respective variables in a sample of 256 university students (2015) and 231 employees and university students (2017). Regression analyses revealed that the attitude toward reducing one’s own meat consumption was strongly related to the corresponding intention. Furthermore, the subjective norm predicted one’s intention to eat less meat, whereas perceived behavioral control did not. Results were similar across both samples (2015 and 2017). The findings imply that sustainable meat consumption is most likely to be achieved by a change in consumers’ attitudes.
Highlights
Meat consumption significantly contributes to environmental damage [1]
In the present study, we investigated the predictive power of theory of planned behavior (TpB) for one’s intention to eat less meat using more recent data (2015 and 2017) from two surveys conducted in Switzerland
We investigated the predictive power of the TpB for the intention to eat less meat using data from two surveys conducted in Switzerland in 2015 and 2017
Summary
Meat consumption significantly contributes to environmental damage (e.g., loss of biodiversity) [1]. The results showed that one’s attitude toward eating less meat contributed the most to individual behavioral intention, whereas subjective norms contributed only a small amount, and perceived behavioral control did not contribute at all. In the present study, we investigated the predictive power of TpB for one’s intention to eat less meat using more recent data (2015 and 2017) from two surveys conducted in Switzerland. In line with previous research [5,6], we assumed that the individuals’ intention to eat less meat would be predicted most strongly by their respective attitude but not by their perceived behavioral control. Due to recent dietary trends (e.g., veganism) and heightened accessibility of information about the damaging effects of meat, we expected a heightened influence of individuals’ subjective norms
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