The effectiveness of animal welfare-, environmental-, and health-focused video appeals on implicit and explicit wanting of meat and intentions to reduce meat consumption

Abstract

ABSTRACT The production of meat and its consumption are associated with negative consequences for the environment, the animals raised and slaughtered for food, and the health of those who consume animal-based foods. We investigated whether video appeals that addressed these topics affected participants’ wanting of meat and intentions to reduce meat relative to a control video. Results indicated only the environmental video led to increased intentions to reduce meat relative to controls. Nevertheless, implicit wanting of meat was lower in all three experimental conditions compared to the control condition. Additionally, moral emotions and agreement with the video’s message mediated the relationships between condition and implicit wanting and intentions for the animal welfare and environment conditions. For the health condition, only agreement with the message served as a mediator. These results suggest that although animal welfare-, environmental-, and health-focused video appeals may be effective at shifting immediate desire to consume meat, environmental video appeals may be the most effective for increasing intentions to change future meat intake.