CrushingTrump video

Generating Anthropomorphism

One way to reduce meat consumption could be by generating feelings of anthropomorphism in our subjects. For example, we could have 2 blocks of categorization consisting of categorizing pictures of various plants/animals and ask: Which is a thing that you eat?  (Press K if you eat it, or L if you don't) Then, have a slide show showing the continuity of feeling between humans and animals (of various taxa) in order to generate anthropomorphism, which (I hope) creates CD in our omnivore participants. This block could end with some questions. Then another 2 blocks of categorization.

There is a lot of space to improve this framework (CAT 1 - CD generation - CAT 2) as I just had the idea after re-reading Stevan's remarks on the article Gabrielle shared and wrote some intuitive ideas that came to mind. As for the behavior change measurement, I have not given up on finding something other than self-report through a meal-diary (though it seems like the best option for now?).  After the self-report phase, another CAT1-CD generation-CAT2 session could be done.

 As we've seen up to now, there could be many ways to generate CD: education about health benefits of adopting plant-based diets (PBD) and the adverse effects of animal-rich diet, education about the environmental impacts of animal farming (and the benefits for the environment of adopting a PBD), education about the real conditions of farmed animals and the impressive cognitive abilities of many animals by showing pictures, videos or research data in a kid-sib fashion. We could also explain the analogy between specism and sexism\racism. 

At the end of the CD generation, it would be pertinent to ask questions similar to Ricard's four questions (which I think is an effective mean to generate inconsistency during CAT2). There must be a way to make obvious to anyone the clear continuity of feeling between humans and farmed animals. Although I mentioned presenting research data in a kid-sib fashion to our participants, a slide-show of different pictures and small clips would be more effective in generating anthropomorphism.

We share many different emotions with animals - just think about the pictures in Darwin's book on animal and human emotions - and by using the positive emotions (the capacity to love and care for others, parent-children bonding) over the negative ones (the capacity to suffer just as we do and their consequently inhumane treatment), we could generate CD by having people empathize with animals in a way that is not immediately too overwhelming for them. 

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2018.04.012 :  In two studies (N = 588) we confirmed that decreased meat consumption was associated with both increased recognition of human features of animals and increased empathy to animals. Most importantly, our data support a model in which animals’ anthropomorphism predicts empathy. Empathy, in turn, increases the importance that potential animal harm plays in dietary choices regarding meat, leading to reduced meat consumption. (...) Our research also demonstrates that it is specifically anthropomorphism of animals, rather than a generalized tendency to anthropomorphize everything from the natural environment to technical devices, that is associated with reduced meat consumption.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2019.03.019 : Anthropomorphism leads to less favorable attitudes toward meat consumption by inducing feelings of anticipatory guilt