Willingness to Consume Fewer Animal Products: A Latent Profile Analysis

Abstract

ABSTRACT The goal of this research was to develop a brief instrument to identify people’s stage of readiness to change consuming animals. In two studies (ns = 206, 51% male; 226, 43% male), participants responded to 15 items based on a clinical instrument of readiness to change alcohol consumption. Responses to these 15 items were then analyzed by latent profile analysis to identify participants’ readiness to change stage. As predicted, we identified (1) those who do not think animal consumption is a problem (precontemplation profile), (2) those who are considering changing their animal-consumption behaviors (contemplation profile), and (3) those who have already changed their animal-consumption behaviors (action profile). In both studies, the 3-profile model had acceptable model fit (entropy > 0.8 and lower AIC and BIC scores than the 1-profile or 2-profile models). The 3-profile model also had greater theoretical interpretability than an alternative 4-profile model. Study 2 provided evidence that the three profiles were related to other constructs in expected ways. Those with the action profile knew more about animals used as food (F (2, 223) = 12.24, p < 0.001, η 2 = 0.10) and consumed fewer animal products (F (2, 223) = 24.04, p < 0.001, η 2 = 0.18) than those with contemplation or precontemplation profiles. Those with the contemplation profile had weaker justifications for using animals as food, and those with the action profile had lower justifications for using animals as food than those with the other profiles (F (2, 223) = 43.63, p < 0.001, η 2 = 0.28). Study 2 also provided evidence that the 4-profile model was not more strongly related to these related constructs than the 3-profile model. Identifying those who are at different stages of readiness to change may be beneficial to help identify, contextualize, and evaluate interventions aimed at reducing animal consumption.