Willingness to reduce meat consumption among U.S. flexitarians: Sampling, segmentation, and judgmental latitudes

Abstract

There is an urgent need to reduce meat consumption given the negative impacts industrial animal farming has on animals, the environment, and human health. Typically, much attention is paid to veg*nism as a solution. Yet an emerging persuasive strategy suggests encouraging widespread meat reduction among the growing segment of the population known as flexitarians. To succeed, such a strategy requires accurately characterizing both current dietary behavior and willingness to change. To explore this proposal, a survey of a representative sample 1,000 U.S. adults was conducted in 2022 that accounted for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, and residency distributions. Social Judgment Theory was utilized to inform the development of an ordered alternatives questionnaire that measured respondents’ willingness to reduce meat by considering their latitudes of acceptance, non-commitment, and rejection in relation to the number of days per week they would be willing to forego meat. A methodology for measuring dietary behavior is proposed that investigates the beliefs of both flexitarians (currently reducing meat) and future flexitarians (willing to reduce in the future). Findings indicate flexitarians comprise 38% of the population while future flexitarians comprise an additional 42%. Further, 90% of flexitarians express willingness to go without meat three days per week while 85% of future flexitarians indicate they would forego meat two days per week. Conclusions highlight the potential value of targeting meat reduction messaging to these two dietary groups since, together, they represent approximately 80% of the population.