Towards Sustainability by Changing the Moral Standing of Animals: A Prejudice-Based Intervention Reducing People’s Speciesist Attitudes and Behaviors

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 behaviors toward animals. As the underlying mechanism of prejudice toward animals is similar to human outgroup prejudice, we designed an intervention based on synthesized insights from the prejudice literature. In two studies, participants (NStudy1 = 603 and NStudy2 = 600) either received an intervention or no intervention. Then, harmful attitudes and behaviors toward animals (Studies 1 & 2) and possible mediators (Study 2) were measured. The prejudice-based intervention led participants to intend more strongly to change their hurtful behavior 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 changing the moral standing of animals.