An interesting paper in the February, 2012 issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin by Brock Bastian, Steve Loughnan, Nick Haslam, and Helena Radke suggests that when people eat meat, they tend to downplay the minds of the animals that they eat.
In one simple study, the researchers asked (meat-eating) participants to rate how willing they were to eat a variety of animals ranging from houseflies, to fish, to chicken to elephants to gorillas. They also rated the how strongly each of these animals had a number of mental abilities such as feeling hunger, fear, and pain, and having self-control and planning abilities. There was a systematic relationship between the animals people choose to eat and their beliefs about the minds of the animals. People were much less willing to eat animals that they believe have complex mental abilities than to eat animals that do not have complex minds.
Of course, this alone might just mean that the animals that people choose to eat are the ones that are not so smart. In another study, meat eaters were asked to think about cows and sheep. Some of them thought about these animals living an idyllic life on a farm. Others thought specifically about these animals growing up on a farm and then being killed for food. Later, they also rated the mental abilities of the animals. When people thought about the animals as food, their ratings of the mental abilities of the animals were lower than when they thought about the animals living on a farm.
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In one simple study, the researchers asked (meat-eating) participants to rate how willing they were to eat a variety of animals ranging from houseflies, to fish, to chicken to elephants to gorillas. They also rated the how strongly each of these animals had a number of mental abilities such as feeling hunger, fear, and pain, and having self-control and planning abilities. There was a systematic relationship between the animals people choose to eat and their beliefs about the minds of the animals. People were much less willing to eat animals that they believe have complex mental abilities than to eat animals that do not have complex minds.
Of course, this alone might just mean that the animals that people choose to eat are the ones that are not so smart. In another study, meat eaters were asked to think about cows and sheep. Some of them thought about these animals living an idyllic life on a farm. Others thought specifically about these animals growing up on a farm and then being killed for food. Later, they also rated the mental abilities of the animals. When people thought about the animals as food, their ratings of the mental abilities of the animals were lower than when they thought about the animals living on a farm.
- More Here
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