You are what you eat: an introduction to the special issue on the social psychology of vegetarianism and meat restriction: implications of conceptualizing dietary habit as a social identity

ABSTRACT

People’s diets can serve as a basis for social identity, and the papers in this special issue examine the social psychological implications of vegetarianism as a social identity. The papers run the gamut from examining how vegetarians are viewed by the omnivorous majority to examining interventions designed to reduce meat consumption. In this paper I provide background information to provide a context for understanding the articles. This information includes a discussion of definitions of vegetarianism, people’s motives for adopting a vegetarian diet, and some of the individual differences other than diet that distinguish vegetarians and non-vegetarians.

KEYWORDS:

• Vegetarianism
• social identity
• meat restriction
• veganism

Initially, the phrase “You are what you eat” was meant to remind people that their health is determined by the quality of the food they eat. Eating healthier foods leads to better health than eating less healthy foods. Although the value of this simple proposition has not changed, in contemporary society, this phrase can take on an additional meaning. What we eat can also reflect who we are, our social identity, and the articles in this special examine the implications of adopting a vegetarian diet.

When thinking about vegetarianism it is important to keep in mind the distinction between vegetarians of choice and vegetarians of necessity (Leahy et al., 2010). Vegetarians of choice are individuals who have access to meat but choose not to eat meat, whereas vegetarians of necessity are individuals who do not have access to eat meat (it is too expensive, it is unavailable, etc.). Similar to the vast majority of research on vegetarianism (and meat reduction), the articles in the special issue examine vegetarians of choice, who are invariably residents of industrialized countries. From a psychological perspective, a focus on vegetarians of choice makes sense. For people who do not have access to meat, following a vegetarian diet may not reflect anything about their motives, how they think of themselves, and so forth.

Regardless of choice or necessity, why should eating meat (or not) be a meaningful part of one’s identity? First, it is important to note that eating is often, perhaps typically, a social event (e.g., Oh et al., 2014). So, dietary habits are socially embedded, a hallmark characteristic of social identity. Second, research has consistently found that vegetarians of choice make up less than 10% of the population of countries in which meat is available. For example, in 2018, approximately 5% of US adults identified themselves as vegetarians, a percent that has not changed much over time (Hrynowski, 2022). Vegetarians are a social minority, and this minority status is on display whenever people eat with someone.

Granting all this, the question remains: “Why should vegetarianism constitute a social identity whereas other food preferences such as a preference for vanilla or chocolate ice cream do not?” The answer lies in the fact that many people have explicit and strong motives to being (or becoming) vegetarian. This means that their diet can reflect their values. In contrast, for omnivores, who may not have consciously chosen to follow an omnivorous diet, their diet may not necessarily reflect their values.

Although research on the psychological aspects of vegetarianism has been conducted for some time, it appears to have increased meaningfully over the past decade or so. Nevertheless, I suspect that many readers of the Journal are not that familiar with research on the psychological aspects of vegetarianism, and so I have provided what I think is some useful background information. None of this is intended to be a formal review; rather, I have described some of the more important themes and issues.

Context: Who is a vegetarian, who is a vegan, and what are flexitarians and reducetarians?

At first glance, it may seem simple. A vegetarian is an individual who eats only vegetables (and fruits and nuts). This is the root of the term. Nevertheless, the term is typically understood in terms of a negation: A vegetarian is someone who does not eat meat (or flesh of any kind). This leaves an opening for, and a source of debate about, what it means to consume foods derived from animals that are not meat (e.g., eggs and dairy products). This has led to sub-types of vegetarianism, e.g., lacto-vegetarians (consume diary), ovo-vegetarians (consume eggs), and lacto-ovo vegetarians. Pescatarians, who do not eat meat and poultry, but do eat fish and seafood, are sometimes classified as vegetarians, but such a classification is controversial.

Vegans are a subset of vegetarians. Strictly speaking, vegans do not consume or use products made from or by living creatures. For example, vegans do not consume dairy products, eggs, or honey because they are made by animals. Similarly, vegans do not wear leather or wool because they are made from animals. These are strict criteria (The Vegan Society, n.d.). All vegans are vegetarians, but not all vegetarians are vegans.

Defining what constitutes vegetarianism and veganism runs the risk of setting up a conflict between what people think they are and what an objective observer would describe them to be. For example, some people may eat meat only once a week or once a month, but they may think of themselves as vegetarians because they eat meat infrequently. Moreover, if they think of themselves as vegetarians, then their social identities include being a vegetarian. Similarly, some people may not eat any animal-based products, but they may wear leather shoes. Such people may think of themselves as vegan and identify as vegan, although according to the definition provided by most vegan organizations, they are not.

By the way, in some of the articles in this special issue (and elsewhere) you will see the term “veg*n.” Veg*n is a recently coined term that refers to vegans and vegetarians considered as a single group.

The last decade has seen the rise of two terms that refer to ways in which people restrict or limit the amount of meat in their diet other than vegetarianism and veganism. The first is flexitarian, a term coined by Blatner (2010). Flexitarians are primarily vegetarians, but they eat meat occasionally. The second is reducetarian, a term coined by Kateman. “‘Reducetarians’ are committed to eating less meat and dairy and fewer eggs – following their own hearts and individual motivations” (The Reducetarian Foundation, 2022).

These terms are relatively new, but it appears that over time, the number of people who self-identify as following one of these two types of diet is increasing (Gould, 2022; Malochleb, 2020). Given the newness of these terms and the large range these two categories encompass of how animal based food products are restricted, at present, it is difficult define precisely exactly what sort of diet they represent.

Context: How many people are vegetarians?

Putting aside (while not ignoring) ambiguities regarding what constitutes a vegetarian diet, and by extension, who is a vegetarian, there is the issue of how common vegetarians of choice are. Given the publicity meat reduction has received recently, some may be surprised by the 5% of Americans being vegetarians that was mentioned previously. Vegetarians are a social minority, and vegans are a small subset of vegetarians.

Three of the more likely reasons for overestimating the number of vegetarians are: (1) Assuming that reductions in meat consumption represent increases in vegetarianism. As discussed by Nezlek and Forestell (2020), there appears to be a reduction in meat consumption in many industrialized countries, but this appears to reflect the fact that omnivores are eating less meat, not that omnivores are becoming vegetarians. Moreover, declines in meat consumption are more pronounced for beef than for either pork or chicken (Nezlek & Forestell, 2022). (2) Potentially misleading research and consequent publicity from advocacy organizations. See, Šimčikas (2018) for a thorough discussion of how estimated base rates of vegetarianism vary as a function of survey design and who is conducting the survey. (3) Vegetarianism is in the news. Animal advocacy groups tout the benefits of vegetarian diets, as do groups concerned with the environment. Food producers are developing and marketing meat substitutes (Nezlek & Forestell, 2022). Nevertheless, promoting vegetarianism and meat reduction cannot be taken as an indication that people are reducing their consumption of meat or becoming vegetarians.

Context: Why do people restrict meat from their diets?

There is broad agreement that people restrict meat from their diets for three reasons. (1) Ethical reasons, a combination of concerns about the conditions under which animals are raised for slaughter and a belief that it is wrong to kill animals to eat them and use their bodies as products because animals are sentient. (2) Environmental reasons, a recognition that the ways in which raising animals are raised for slaughter the production of meat are environmentally unsound. (3) Health reasons, a recognition of the fact that consuming meat is associated with numerous health problems. Although there is considerable individual variability in how important these three reasons are, and an individual can be motivated to reduce meat consumption for all three reasons or just one of these three, broadly speaking, ethical and environmental motives tend to be stronger than health motives (e.g., Rosenfeld, 2018).

Context: Differences between vegetarians and omnivores in addition to diet

Omnivores and vegetarians differ in terms of characteristics other than their diets. Although the Gallup survey cited previously describes the situation in the US, the differences it describes hold for many Western, industrialized societies. More women than men are vegetarians, vegetarians tend to be more politically liberal (left within a European context) than omnivores (e.g., Nezlek & Forestell, 2020), and vegetarianism is less common among older people (50–60+) than among younger people. Such differences have implications for sampling. For example, women tend to be more likely than men to volunteer to participate in research (e.g., Glass et al., 2015). In combination with the higher rates of vegetarianism among women, this makes it difficult to recruit participants so that the number of men and women are the same.

In terms of socio-political beliefs, consistent with the differences in political orientation, vegetarians tend to tend to be lower in social dominance orientation and lower in authoritarianism than non-vegetarians. Vegetarians also tend to be more open than omnivores and tend to be more empathic. See, Holler et al. (2021) for a review of differences between vegetarians an omnivores.

The present articles

By design, the articles in this special issue do not represent some overarching framework or model. This is primarily because no such framework or model exists. Vegetarianism has been and can be studied from a variety of perspectives, and the range of articles in the special issue reflects this. A comprehensive framework may be developed in the future, but for now, there is no framework that could have served as an organizing principle.

Noting this, there are some themes and topics that occur more frequently than others in research on vegetarianism as a social identity, some of which focus on the individual differences mentioned above, and the special issue contains articles along these lines. For example, the Vonk and Weiper (2022) and Stone (2022) articles both concern SDO and empathy, and the Budžak and Branković article (2022) concerns SDO.

Other articles examine vegetarianism through the lenses of well-established social-psychological frameworks such as intergroup relations (Pabian et al., 2022; Adamczyk & Maison, 2022), friendship and affiliation (Vandehei & Perry, 2022; Nezlek et al., 2022), and attitude change, albeit with a focus on getting people to reduce their consumption of meat (Budžak & Branković, 2022; Ginn & Lickel, 2022; Herchenroeder et al., 2022). One article, Markowski (2022), concerns dietary lapses, which is a topic that may be a bit less generalizable to domains other than vegetarianism than the other articles.

The studies described in articles in the special issue used various methods, experimental, non-experimental, and quasi-experimental, a variety that represents the methods used by researchers who study vegetarianism. An important limitation of research on vegetarianism is that dietary preference cannot be manipulated, and relationships between dietary preference and other measures need to be considered in this context. Regardless, I believe that the collection of articles in this special issue should be interesting and informative for scholars with various interests, not just those who are interested in vegetarianism per se.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

The preparation of this paper was supported by grant 2018/31/B/HS6/02822 from the Polish National Science Centre (Narodowe Centrum Nauki) to John Nezlek.

Notes on contributors

John B. Nezlek

John B. Nezlek is a Professor at SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Warsaw, and the College of William & Mary. His research interests include vegetarianism as a social psychological construct, prosociality, daily experience, and applications of multilevel modeling in personality and social psychology.