The Relationship between Social Dominance Orientation and Dietary/Lifestyle Choices

Karin Braunsberger,Brian Buckler,Richard O Flamm

doi:10.3390/su13168901

Abstract

This research aims to: (1) examine the construct social dominance orientation (SDO) in a setting that expands group hierarchy to include prejudices and dominance toward animals; (2) compare predictive validity and internal consistency between the 16-item SDO6 and the 4-item SSDO; and (3) test whether the SDO6 and the SSDO scales predict well in a consumer behavior oriented contextual setting. Predictive validity of the SSDO was almost as high as that of the SSD6; internal reliability, however, was considerably lower. Further, as hypothesized, individuals exhibiting lower levels of SDO, as assessed by both SDO6 and SSDO, exhibit lower levels of speciesism as well as higher levels of empathic concern. In addition, as hypothesized, ethical vegans, as compared to carnists, display lower levels of SDO and speciesism, and higher levels of empathic concern.

Highlights

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, St
When comparing the 16-item SDO6 to the 4-item SSDO, we focus on contrasting omnivores who, in the Western world, generally adhere to “the belief system in which eating certain animals [e.g., cows, pigs, etc., but not dogs, cats, etc.] is considered ethical and appropriate” and have been named carnists [23] to those individuals who embrace ethical veganism, which has been defined as the “personal rejection of the commodity status of nonhuman animals, of the notion that animals have only external value, and of the notion that animals have less moral value than do humans” [24]
The results of our research are in line with Pratto et al.’s [2] study that found the predictive validity of the SSDO to be comparable to that of the SDO6

Summary

Introduction

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, St. Petersburg, FL 33701, USA; Abstract: This research aims to: (1) examine the construct social dominance orientation (SDO) in a setting that expands group hierarchy to include prejudices and dominance toward animals; (2). Social dominance theory [1] suggests that in addition to social group-based hierarchies that are grounded in age and gender and common in all social systems, societies that produce sustainable economic surplus adopt structures of social hierarchies that are arbitrarily based on group traits such as ethnic group, race, species, and religion Within these arbitrarily set structures, group conflict and repression are generally noted, and the existing prejudices and discrimination are reflections of the group-based social hierarchy and help construct and sustain it. Even though SDO6 has been used extensively, it has been criticized for the relatively high number of scale items which is burdensome for both researcher and respondent This common criticism targeted at longer scales has led to the trend of adopting shorter measures in personality research [4]. Pratto et al.’s [2] research directly tackles these and other criticisms by testing the recently developed 4-item, 10-point, semantic differential Short

Objectives

Methods

Findings

Discussion

Conclusion