When the good is stronger than the bad: relationships between well-being and perceived social approval and disapproval of dietary habit among vegetarians

ABSTRACT

The ‘Bad’ is often described as more influential than the ‘Good’. We examined this possibility for relationships between well-being and feedback from others about their diets among vegetarians, and we found that the ‘Good’ was stronger than the ‘Bad’. Participants were 982 vegetarians who completed measures of well-being (depression, anxiety, satisfaction with life, purpose and search for meaning in life, self-esteem, and loneliness). They also answered questions about the approval and disapproval they perceived they received because of their diets from friends, family members, and strangers. Each measure of well-being was regressed onto measures of perceived approval and perceived disapproval, separately for each source. The analyses found that for feedback from all three sources, well-being was related to perceived approval more consistently than it was related to perceived disapproval. Approval may influence well-being more than disapproval does, at least within the context we studied.

KEYWORDS:

• Vegetarianism
• social approval
• social disapproval
• well-being
• meaning in life

Acknowledgments

We thank ProVeg Polska, Fundacja Viva! Akcja dla zwierząt, and Roślinniejemy, vegetarian advocacy organizations and groups in Poland, for their help,

Disclosure statement

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

Availability of data and materials

As noted in the text, all data and materials are available via the Open Science Foundation.

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://osf.io/ha978/?view_only=7cfd246f457848e7bb0cce3b741946c1

Additional information

Funding

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