Meat-eating justification and relationship closeness with veg*n family, friends, and romantic partners

ABSTRACT

A study of 190 omnivores examined their meat-eating justification (MEJ) beliefs and relationship closeness with veg*n friends, family members, and romantic partners; and how relationship closeness changes after veg*n diets are adopted. Denial and dissociation MEJs predicted lower closeness, whereas the hierarchical MEJ predicted higher closeness. Results also showed that relationship closeness significantly decreased for frequency and diversity of activities after adoption of veg*n diets. Closeness in terms of strength significantly increased after adoption of veg*n diets. A significant interaction was found between relationship type and time in which frequency of interactions decreased for friends and family after adoption of veg*n diets but did not change for romantic partners. These results suggest that only MEJs with moral considerations that elicit meat-related cognitive dissonance reduce relationship closeness after the adoption of veg*n diets; and that relationship closeness decreases after the adoption of veg*n diets only with friends or family members.

KEYWORDS:

• Vegan
• vegetarian
• Meat-eating justification beliefs
• relationship closeness
• omnivores

Acknowledgments

This article is based on portions of a dissertation completed by Amy D. Vandehei. Anthony R. Perry served as dissertation chair and provided guidance on the design and data analysis and edited the manuscript. Both authors approved of the final version of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data described in this article are openly available in the Open Science Framework at https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.2022.2132370

The data that support the findings of this study are available in OSF storage at http://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/X6KC5

Open Scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badges for Open Data and Open Materials through Open Practices Disclosure. The data and materials are openly accessible at https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.2022.2132370

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Amy D. Vandehei

Amy D. Vandehei received a PhD in General Psychology at Walden University. Her research interests include sleep disorders, social psychology, and veganism. She is an adjunct psychology professor at William Woods University in Fulton, MO.

Anthony R. Perry

Anthony R. Perry is a full;time faculty member in the College of Psychology and Community Services at Walden University. His broad research interests include adulthood and aging, health psychology, and personality and social psychology.