Association between Diet Preferences and Attitudes

Abstract

As Western Society moves towards veganism, the topic is gaining attention in academia. Prior research in this field focuses on linkages between peoples’ dietary choices and their social and political attitudes. Several studies suggest correlation between these variables: the less meat the respondents report consuming, the stronger are the preferences towards less conventional and more egalitarian society (Allen et al., 2000; Veser et al., 2015). We aim to check this hypothesis and replicate the study done by Veser and colleagues (Veser et al., 2015) to see whether we can come to similar results.

Our results confirm that self-reported nutrition choices are correlated with attitudes. However, these associations are weak. In fact, our findings suggest a possibility for a preferential influence of gender on attitudes in spite of a diet. Due to the fact that both nutrition choices and attitudes towards right-wing authoritarismus and social dominance orientation exhibit gender differences, the analysis of attitudes based on claimed meat consumption/meat avoidance of respondents seems to be of limited use.