Appetite for Ignorance: Does eating meat cause information avoidance about its harms?

Abstract

Meat consumption is associated with environmental and animal-welfare harms, and many people consume more than is healthy. Past research has shown that conflicted consumers manage their beliefs in a variety of domains. Based on two independent studies, we test whether eating meat affects people’s preferences for information about the environmental, animal-welfare, and health harms of meat, as well as the alleged environmental benefits of animal agriculture. Our findings are mixed. Eating beef causes information avoidance about the environmental effects of cattle, and eating pork causes people to avoid information about the health effects of pork. Other results were not significant. We interpret these mixed results as suggesting that eating meat causes information avoidance, but the effects are nuanced as they are meat-specific and topic-specific. This project combines the independent explorations of two teams regarding the same research question. The joint conclusion reached differs from the initial independent conclusions. Consequently, this paper also serves as a case study about the sensitivity of scientific interpretation to experimental design.