Angela Dillon-Murray

Increasing the willingness to reduce animal product consumption has the potential to contribute to ameliorating the impact of animal agriculture on the environment, as well as foster healthier diets and improve the lives of farmed and wild animals. Reduction of animal product consumption is a prosocial behaviour (PSB), and factors that are considered to influence it are empathy and selfishness. In this research, animal-oriented empathy examined empathy specifically for animals. Animal oriented empathy and three types of selfishness: adaptive, egoistic, and pathological were measured to determine if they could predict willingness to reduce animal product consumption. PSB is also influenced by motivations and motivations can lead to willingness. The three most common motivations to reduce animal product consumption: animal welfare, the environment, and health were examined to determine whether they predict willingness. A sample of 492 Australian adults completed questionnaires via the Zoho survey platform, and the data underwent a hierarchical regression. Higher pathological selfishness predicted a greater willingness to reduce animal product consumption, as did environmental and animal welfare motivations. However, higher health motivation predicted a lower willingness to reduce animal product consumption. Interpretation of the perplexing results in relation to pathological selfishness suggested further research. The practical value of utilising environmental and animal motivations to increase willingness to reduce animal products whilst bringing attention to the health issues was also discussed.

This study examined how the level of meat consumption was related to two psychological factors, selfishness and animal-oriented empathy, and three motivations related to animal, health, and environmental issues. A sample of Australian adults between 18 and 80 (N = 497) was surveyed online via the Zoho Survey platform. Structural equation modelling was applied to the data, and the resulting models revealed that higher selfishness and lower empathy were associated with higher meat consumption for males but there was no association between psychological factors and meat consumption for females. All three motivations were associated with both higher empathy and selfishness for males. For females, higher empathy was associated with higher health and animal motivations, while higher selfishness was associated with higher environmental motivation. Lastly, none of the three motivations were related to meat consumption for either gender. Thus, the results only partially supported the hypotheses that selfishness and empathy would influence meat consumption and motivations. Nevertheless, this study contributes to research on personality factors in relation to meat consumption and the link between masculinity and meat consumption.