Meat and interpersonal motives: the case of self-enhancement

Figures & data

Table 1. Pattern matrix of motives after promax rotation.

For each goal, please indicate how important it is to you in general.	Factor
	1	2	3
Developing close relationships with others.	.85
Having close friendships.	.78
Getting to know other people very well.	.68
Having intimate one-on-one contact with someone.	.48
Achieving a higher status.		.90
Performing better than others.		.68
Impressing people with what I do.		.60
Being able to manage others’ activities.			.87
Leading others.			.50
Having the possibility to influence people.			.49

Factor loadings <.25 are not printed

Table 2. Pearson correlations for number of meat days (Meat), affiliation, self-enhancement, power, Social Dominance Orientation (SDO), Affective Empathy with People (AEwP), Cognitive Empathy with People (CEwP), Empathy with Animals (EwA), and Human-Animal Continuity (HAC).

Variable	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
1. Meat	1
2. Affil.	−.08	1
3. Enhance	.23*	.08	1
4. Power	.07	.16*	.47*	1
5. SDO	.35*	−.21*	.33*	.22*	1
6. AEwP	−.26	.38*	−.16*	−.06	−.43*	1
7. CEwP	−.11	.31*	−.16*	−.01	−.28*	.35*	1
8. EwA	−.50*	.08	−.17*	−.10	−.31*	.42*	.12	1
9. HAC	−.50*	.06	−.20*	−.13	−.38*	.28*	.09	.71*	1

* p < .001 (two-tailed).

Table 3. Standardized regression estimates (β) with number of days eating meat per week as dependent variable.

Independent variable	β	t(5, 574)
Interspecies
Empathy with animals	−.27*	−5.29
Human-animal continuity	−.23*	−4.59
Intergroup
Social dominance orientation	.15*	3.70
Interpersonal
Affective empathy with people	.00	0.08
Self-enhancement	.08	2.12

* p < .001 (two-tailed).

Figure 1. Path model of the relations between interpersonal, intergroup and interspecies variables.

Values represent the β coefficients of the fully standardized solution. * p < .05; ** p < .001

Table

When I see animals suffer, I want to take immediate action to help.	When I see people suffer, I want to take immediate action to help.
I often have concerned feelings for animals in an unfortunate situation.	I often feel have concerned feelings for people who are less fortunate than me. (D)
I can get very upset when I see animals suffer.	I can get very upset when I see people suffer.
I tend to want to protect and care for animals.	I tend to want to protect and care for others.
	I’m often quite touched by things I see happening. (D)
	Other people’s misfortunes don’t usually disturb me a great deal. (D)
	I would describe myself as a pretty soft-hearted person. (D)
	When I see someone being taken advantage of, I feel protective toward them. (D)
	When I see someone being treated unfairly, I feel little pity for them. (D)
I am often sad about how animals are treated in our world
I empathize with animals in need.
I am very moved by sad films about animals.
I get very angry when I see animals being mistreated.

Items with (D) are from the Davis (1983) scale.

Davis, M. H. (1983). Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for a multidimensional approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44(1), 113–126. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.44.1.113

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Data availability statement

All raw data are freely available to any researcher wishing to use them for non-commercial purposes, without breaching participant confidentiality.

The data described in this article are openly available in the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/juyqv