Towards sustainability by reducing speciesism: The effect of a prejudice-based intervention on people's attitudes and behaviours towards animals

IF 3.2 2区心理学 Q1 PSYCHOLOGY, SOCIAL

British Journal of Social Psychology Pub Date : 2025-02-06 DOI:10.1111/bjso.12864

Mariëlle Stel, Aiko Unterweger

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Abstract

The way we use animals for human consumption, medicines, and entertainment causes problems for the environment, our health, and animal welfare. This research investigated an intervention aimed at reducing harmful attitudes and behaviours towards animals. As the underlying mechanism of prejudice towards animals is similar to human outgroup prejudice, we designed an intervention based on synthesized insights from the prejudice literature. In two studies, participants (N_Study1 = 603 and N_Study2 = 600) either received an intervention or no intervention. Then, harmful attitudes and behaviours towards animals (Studies 1 and 2) and possible mediators (Study 2) were measured. The prejudice-based intervention led participants to more strongly intend to reduce their hurtful behaviours towards animals (Studies 1 and 2). Moreover, the intervention diminished participants' animal product consumption as measured after a week (Study 2). Whereas the intervention did not affect speciesist attitudes in Study 1, it did in the more strongly powered Study 2. Finally, the path model of Study 2 showed that perspective-taking and feelings associated with injustice played a role in reducing speciesism, whereas awareness of animal treatment did not. Together, our intervention provides an important step to sustainability by reducing speciesism.

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来源期刊

British Journal of Social Psychology PSYCHOLOGY, SOCIAL-

CiteScore

9.50

自引率

7.40%

发文量

期刊介绍： The British Journal of Social Psychology publishes work from scholars based in all parts of the world, and manuscripts that present data on a wide range of populations inside and outside the UK. It publishes original papers in all areas of social psychology including: • social cognition • attitudes • group processes • social influence • intergroup relations • self and identity • nonverbal communication • social psychological aspects of personality, affect and emotion • language and discourse Submissions addressing these topics from a variety of approaches and methods, both quantitative and qualitative are welcomed. We publish papers of the following kinds: • empirical papers that address theoretical issues; • theoretical papers, including analyses of existing social psychological theories and presentations of theoretical innovations, extensions, or integrations; • review papers that provide an evaluation of work within a given area of social psychology and that present proposals for further research in that area; • methodological papers concerning issues that are particularly relevant to a wide range of social psychologists; • an invited agenda article as the first article in the first part of every volume. The editorial team aims to handle papers as efficiently as possible. In 2016, papers were triaged within less than a week, and the average turnaround time from receipt of the manuscript to first decision sent back to the authors was 47 days.