Horizontal hostility among non-meat eaters.

Hank Rothgerber

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0096457

Abstract

The present study examined intergroup judgments made between four groups of non-meat eaters: health vegetarians; ethical vegetarians; health vegans, and ethical vegans. Consistent with hypotheses based on horizontal hostility and the need to maintain ingroup distinctiveness, ethical vegetarians gave unfavorable evaluations to health vegetarians relative to vegans, especially when the mainstream omnivore group was made salient. Contrary to expectations, vegans gave relatively more favorable evaluations to ethical vegetarians than health vegetarians when mainstream salience was low. This was especially true for vegans who were motivated primarily by ethical concerns. When mainstream salience was high, vegans did not distinguish between the vegetarian subgroups. Results suggest that one’s motives for abstaining from meat often play a larger role in this type of intergroup perceptions than one’s dietary practices.

Highlights

Despite increasing claims the last decade that meat consumption harms the environment, personal and public health, and animals [1], vegetarianism still remains a relatively infrequent practice in the U.S, accounting for 3% of the population [2]
The need for a distinct ingroup identity, and on the logic that these minority groups could be arranged along a continuum from omnivoreshealth vegetarians-ethical vegetarians-vegans, the following hypotheses were made: Hypothesis 1: Ethical vegetarians will give vegans more favorable global evaluations than they will health vegetarians; Hypothesis 2: Vegans will give health vegetarians more favorable global evaluations than they will ethical vegetarians; and Hypothesis 3: When the mainstream omnivore majority is a salient part of the comparative context, the effects in the first and second hypotheses will be stronger than when the mainstream majority is not made salient
Because non-meat eating minority groups do not seemingly compete with one another over scarce material resources – the majority of Western vegetarians hail from the middle class [23] – rather than opting for a model based on realistic conflict theory, the present research focused on identity threats as the most salient feature underlying this unique case of intergroup perceptions

Summary

Introduction

Despite increasing claims the last decade that meat consumption harms the environment, personal and public health, and animals [1], vegetarianism still remains a relatively infrequent practice in the U.S, accounting for 3% of the population [2]. The need for a distinct ingroup identity, and on the logic that these minority groups could be arranged along a continuum from omnivoreshealth vegetarians-ethical vegetarians-vegans, the following hypotheses were made: Hypothesis 1: Ethical vegetarians will give vegans more favorable global evaluations than they will health vegetarians; Hypothesis 2: Vegans will give health vegetarians more favorable global evaluations than they will ethical vegetarians (with it unclear whether vegan subgroups would differ from each other in this assessment); and Hypothesis 3: When the mainstream omnivore majority is a salient part of the comparative context, the effects in the first and second hypotheses will be stronger than when the mainstream majority is not made salient

Method

Results

Discussion