Mouse-Tracking

People are increasingly concerned about how meat affects the environment, human health, and animal welfare, yet eating and enjoying meat remains a norm. Unsurprisingly, many people are ambivalent about meat—evaluating it as both positive and negative. Here, we propose that meat-related conflict is multidimensional and depends on people’s dietary group: Omnivores’ felt ambivalence relates to multiple negative associations that oppose a predominantly positive attitude towards meat, and veg*ans’ ambivalence relates to various positive associations that oppose a predominantly negative attitude. A qualitative study (N = 235; German) revealed that omnivores and veg*ans experience meat-related ambivalence due to associations with animals, sociability, sustainability, health, and sensory experiences. To quantify felt ambivalence in these domains, we developed the Meat Ambivalence Questionnaire (MAQ). We validated the MAQ in four pre-registered studies using self-report and behavioral data (N = 3,485; German, UK, representative US). Both omnivores and veg*ans reported meat-related ambivalence, but with differences across domains and their consequences for meat consumption. Specifically, ambivalence was associated with less meat consumption in omnivores (especially sensory-/animal-based ambivalence) and more meat consumption in veg*ans (especially sensory-/socially-based ambivalence). Network analyses shed further light on the nomological net of the MAQ while controlling for a comprehensive set of determinants of meat consumption. By introducing the MAQ, we hope to provide researchers with a tool to better understand how ambivalence accompanies behavior change and maintenance.

Organic fruits and vegetables are often visually “suboptimal” because organic farming uses neither pesticides nor synthetic fertilisers to improve the cosmetic appearance of the produce. Despite the organic sector's natural and sustainable image, such foods often never reach the market or are left on the shelf, greatly increasing food waste. The current work hypothesised that an important factor in the rejection of suboptimal food is consumers' experience of ambivalence regarding these products. Data were collected through an online survey of (occasional) organic consumers in Germany (n = 493), including an online mouse-tracking experiment. We investigated the interplay of ambivalence with environmental concerns and attitudes towards suboptimal food that influence people's willingness to pay (WTP) for suboptimal fruits and vegetables. Our findings suggest that environmentally concerned consumers have more favourable attitudes and experience less ambivalence towards suboptimal food. Only subjective ambivalence was found to be directly associated with consumers' WTP, however, while attitudes were not. Based on these results, we propose measures for policymakers and food retailers to reduce such ambivalence and thus increase organic consumers' acceptance for suboptimal food.

Meat production and its consumption harm animals, the environment, and human health; nevertheless, many people like to eat meat. If people become aware of this so-called meat paradox, they experience an aversive cognitive conflict. People, therefore, have to eschew meat if they permanently want to resolve this conflict. Eschewing meat is demanding, however, because people have to resist their temptation to eat meat and challenge social norms. In the present research, we thus conducted two pre-registered studies to investigate how people may overcome these obstacles: We hypothesized that people may go through a hedonic shift in which they establish cognitive consistency by forming univalent instead of ambivalent attitudes and that this process is fueled by the moral emotion disgust. In Study 1, we found that veg*ans who pursued moral goals with their diet reported more disgust towards meat, which was associated with reduced meat-related ambivalence. In Study 2, we found that disgust towards meat was again associated with decreased meat-related ambivalence. That is, veg*ans and omnivores similarly reported greater disgust after reading a text describing bad hygienic conditions in meat production. Besides this physical disgust, they also experienced heightened disgust if they read a text on animal cruelty in meat production. This moral disgust, however, was only elicited in people who did not morally disengage from their harmful behavior, i.e., in people who attributed relatively high emotional and mental capacities towards animals. While the latter findings of Study 2 are rather exploratory, taken together our findings suggest that morality and disgust may indeed promote cognitive consistency. The outlined processes thus could play a pivotal role in adopting and maintaining meat-less diets.

Many people are aware of the negative consequences of plastic use on the environment. Nevertheless, they use plastic due to its functionality. In the present paper, we hypothesized that this leads to the experience of ambivalence—the simultaneous existence of positive and negative evaluations of plastic. In two studies, we found that participants showed greater ambivalence toward plastic packed food than unpacked food. Moreover, they rated plastic packed food less favorably than unpacked food in response evaluations. In Study 2, we tested whether one-sided (only positive vs. only negative) information interventions could effectively influence ambivalence. Results showed that ambivalence is resistant to (social) influence. Directions for future research were discussed.

Meat consumption is conflicted, because meat provides pleasure to many people, but it also causes animals to suffer. This so-called meat paradox elicits discomfort in meat-eaters and they try to reduce their discomfort, for example, by means of moral disengagement. In the present investigation, we tried to scrutinize this process and examine the boundary conditions that increase moral disengagement. We assumed that, due to a domain general action-oriented state, people tend to resolve the meat paradox via moral disengagement, even if inconsistency is elicited in a different, not food-related domain. Two experiments were conducted, in which we assessed people's moral disengagement efforts via ambivalence measures after we induced inconsistency using different threats in meat-unrelated domains. Supporting our assumptions, people showed reduced ambivalence towards food in affective priming (Experiment 1) and Mouse-Tracker tasks (Experiment 2) after experiencing inconsistency. In fact, plant-based dishes became more positive and meat dishes more negative after inconsistency was induced, indicating that people disguise their endorsement of meat. This provides first convergent evidence that an inconsistency induced action-oriented state may influence cognitions regarding the meat paradox.

Meat consumption elicits highly ambivalent feelings. On the one hand, it is associated with sensory pleasure and tradition; on the other hand, it is linked to moral, ecological, and health-related issues. This conflict is referred to as the meat paradox and it is hypothesized that people who experience the meat paradox resolve resulting discomfort by moral disengagement. However, ambivalence—a central process variable underlying the meat paradox—has never been measured directly, and theorizing on the meat paradox, so far, remains rather elusive. In the present investigation, we assessed meat-related ambivalence by tracking mouse trajectories of people who evaluated meat and plant-based dishes. By using this behavioral measure, our findings support the assumption that omnivores experience greater meat-related ambivalence and use moral disengagement strategies more frequently than non-omnivores. Importantly, our findings also show that experiencing meat-related ambivalence has far-reaching consequences: the larger behavioral ambivalence in omnivores, the higher the use of moral disengagement strategies. Thereby, our findings indicate the importance of ambivalence as a central process variable underlying the meat paradox and highlight how process-orientated research may contribute to our understanding of dietary practices and other potentially harmful behaviors.