Jul 8, 2008 - Makeup, Bikini, Dress, Doll, Blouse. Plant- based foods. Vegetable, Carrot, Corn, Fruit, Salad,. Tomato, Beans, Potato, Peanut, Rice. Animal-.
7/8/2008
Food is “the symbolic medium par excellence” (Morse, 1994, p. 95)
• Feminist scholars: meat consumption replicates and reinforces gender/power hierarchies 1 • Environmental movement: meat is wasteful, polluting, inhumane, and unhealthy 2 • Religious perspectives: some claim meat as a birthright 3 others prohibit or restrict it 4 • Anthropology: nearly universally, men hunt; women tend agriculture & gather foods.5 Meat sharing reinforces political/family coalitions 6 Food taboos are overwhelmingly targeted at meat consumption.7 1.Adams, 1990; Luke 2007; 2.Schlosser, 2001; Motavalli, 2002; 3.Cockburn, 1996/2005 4.Simoons, 1995; 5.Marlowe, 2007; 6.Morris, 1998; Stanford, 1999; 7. Fessler, 2002; Fessler & Navarette, .
1
7/8/2008
• Garbage surveys show 30% exaggeration of red meat consumption.1 Consumers misreport meat purchases within a few minutes of buying it2 • More than half of undergraduates feel ambivalence towards meat consumption.3 • Women hold more negative attitudes towards red meat and give it a lower hedonic value.4 • Meat evokes „moralized‟ disgust.5 Discourse involving meat involves more emotional language than any other foods.6
1.Brittin & Zinn, 1977; 2. Rathje, 1984; 3. Berndsen & Pligt, 2004; Beardsworth & Keil, 1997; 4. Kubberød, et al, 2002; 5. Rozin, et al, 1997; 6. Holm & Møhl, 2000
• Heavy meat consumers are higher in Authoritarianism and Social Dominance Orient.1 Valuing self-control vs. valuing emotional states also predicts meat consumption preferences. 2 • Low SDO individuals reduce meat consumption when told meat is associated with social dominance 3 • People who eat smaller meals and foods perceived as healthy are seen as more feminine; larger meals and unhealthy foods are seen as masculine 4 • Women are much less likely to believe that “a healthy diet should always include meat” and consistently are more sensitive to food‟s ethical issues. 5
1. Allen, et al, 2000; 2. Dietz, et al, 1995; 3. Allen & Ng, 2002; 4. Vartanian, et al, 2007; Stein & Nemeroff, 1995; 5. Lindeman & Sirelius, 2001
2
7/8/2008
• In New Zealand, vegetarians hold more humanistic & ecological values; but health/weight-related dieters place more value on upholding cultural norms.1 • In the U.S., valuing social order, security, obedience and self-discipline strongly reduces the probability of adopting a vegetarian diet; holding altruistic values increase this probability2 • Endorsing universalism (e.g., “every person in the world should be treated equally”) increases animalfriendly attitudes and food choices that favor less meat, or free-range meat3 • Across 18 nations, vegetarians showed more support for egalitarian policies, and participated more in environmental political action4 1. Allen & Ng, 2002; 2. Dietz, et al, 1995; 3. de Boer, et al, 2007; 4. Rozendal, 2008
The Implicit Associations Test (IAT): A sensitive measure of ideas immediately activated by opposed pairs of concepts Category
Items
Male
Husband, Father, Brother, Bachelor, Mustache, Hairy, Aggressive, Muscular Wife, Mother, Sister, Bride, Pregnant, Makeup, Bikini, Dress, Doll, Blouse
Female
Plantbased foods Animalbased foods
Vegetable, Carrot, Corn, Fruit, Salad, Tomato, Beans, Potato, Peanut, Rice Meat, Beef, Chicken, Fish, Pork, Steak, Burger, Bacon, Barbecue, Seafood
3
7/8/2008
Study 2 Materials: Category
Items
Superior
Confident, Authority, Box, Dominant, Invincible, Master, Ruler, Top, Winner Defeated, Failure, Weak, Follower, Humble, Loser, Meek, Poor, Servant
Inferior
Measures D: the sorting speed advantage for one possible pairing of targets versus the opposite – range: 2 – 0 = no speed difference
Errors: # of initially miscategorized target items
Diet identity Prompt: Which of these names best summarizes your diet (your overall pattern of food choices)? • Omnivorous; Health- or Weight-Manager; Religion-based diet; Red Meat Reducer; Pescetarian; Ovo-Lacto Vegetarian; or Vegan
Justification of Meat-eating scale Scale: 1 (Strongly Agree) to 5 (Strongly Disagree) Example Items: You will become weak if you don't eat meat; Humans should eat meat because they are Earth's top animal; There's no problem with eating meat, because animals have no souls; Whether you believe in Creationism or Evolution, both say that humans are natural meat-eaters; Human teeth and organs are naturally suited to meat-eating; Eating meat is OK because it is natural for animals to eat other animals.
4
7/8/2008
• Sample: Southern California undergraduate students and community members • Study 1 (Gender and Food): – N=13 (pilot data only) – Lab-based administration – Preliminary data to guide web-based implementation (www.foodthinking.org)
• Study 2 (Dominance and Food) – N=0 (no data collected) – Will mirror Study 1‟s web-deployed form
• Average D-score = 0.629, representing a moderate association of Male with Animalbased foods (and Female with Plant-foods) • 89.6% correct in stereotype congruent trials • 80.1% correct for stereotype incongruent • Implicit-Explicit relationship: – Correlation of individual D scores with responses to the question: How much do you associate plant-based/animal based foods with males or females? r(11) = 0.511 p = 0.076
• Insufficient data from vegetarian individuals to test if D is moderated by subject‟s diet
5
7/8/2008
• The IAT is a useful tool for investigating the symbolic associations to foods. • The pilot data suggest full samples will show the predicted patterns of associations • If so, we‟ll have high quality data to confirm the meat symbolism analyses of feminists, anthropologists, & sociologists • It will be important to recruit an appropriate number of vegetarians to test the moderation hypothesis with good power
•
•
•
•
For the future Measure the strength of gender and dominance associations directly, rather than only in opposed pairs (e.g. word fragment completion) Study the social, political, cognitive, and emotional development of long-term vegetarians, vegetarians who lapse, and their family and social networks When is vegetarianism a pure expression of values and when is it adopted as a means of rejecting the values of specific outgroups? Use the justification of meat-eating scale to investigate carnivore/vegetarian intergroup relations
6
