We describe a rather common process that we call moralization, in which objects or activities that were previously morally neutral acquire a moral component. Moralization converts preferences into values, and in doing so influences cross-generational transmission (because values are passed more effectively in families than are preferences), increases the likelihood of internalization, invokes greater emotional response, and mobilizes the support of governmental and other cultural institutions. In recent decades, we claim, cigarette smoking in America has become moralized. We support our claims about some of the consequences of moralization with an analysis of differences between health and moral vegetarians. Compared with health vegetarians, moral vegetarians find meat more disgusting, offer more reasons in support of their meat avoidance, and avoid a wider range of animal foods. However, contrary to our prediction, liking for meat is about the same in moral and health vegetarians.
Allan M. Brandt and Paul Rozin PERSPECTIVES ON MORALITY AND HEALTH Keith Thomas - Health and Morality in Early Modern England Charles Rosenberg - Banishing Risk: Continuity and Change in the Moral Management of Disease Allan M. Brandt - Behavior, Disease, and Health in the Twentieth-Century United States: The Moral Valence of Individual Risk David Mechanic - The Social Context of Health and Disease and Choices MORALITY AND CULTURE Arthur Kleinman and Joan Kleinman - Moral Transformations of Heal...
#2Carol Nemeroff(ASU: Arizona State University)H-Index: 22
Previous research found that meal size can affect judgments of eaters' attractiveness and femininity. The present study investigates whether eating specific types of foods-namely, healthy, nonfattening foods versus unhealthy, fattening ones-gives rise to moral judgments about the eaters. Subjects were presented with one of four bogus profiles of a person, which differed only in gender and foods consumed. Subjects rated the target on morality; potential mechanisms of effects were also explored. R...
Last. Paul Rozin(UPenn: University of Pennsylvania)H-Index: 88
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We describe the development of a reliable measure of individual differences in disgust sensitivity. The 32-item Disgust Scale includes 2 true-false and 2 disgust-rating items for each of 7 domains of disgust elicitors (food, animals, body products, sex, body envelope violations, death, and hygiene) and for a domain of magical thinking (via similarity and contagion) that cuts across the 7 domains of elicitors. Correlations with other scales provide initial evidence of convergent and discriminant ...
In 3 facial expression identification studies, college students matched a variety of disgust faces to verbally described eliciting situations. The faces depicted specific muscle action movements in accordance with P. Ekman and W. V. Friesen's (1978) Facial Action Coding System. The nose wrinkle is associated with either irritating or offensive smells and, to some extent, bad tastes. Gape and tongue extrusion are associated primarily with what we call core or food-offense disgust and also oral ir...
#1Paul Rozin(UPenn: University of Pennsylvania)H-Index: 88
Abstract Although families are almost certainly a powerful force for conveying culture-wide preferences, family resemblance for preferences that vary within culture are surprisingly small. This study examines causes of this low correlation, especially in the domain of food preferences. A sample of 118 college students and their current and biological parents completed surveys on food and aesthetic preferences and values. Mid-parent-child correlations were low (mean r = 0.17) for preferences, but...
We approach disgust as a food-related emotion and define it as revulsion at the prospect of oral incorporation of offensive objects. These objects have contamination properties; if they even briefly contact an otherwise acceptable food, they tend to render it inedible. Drawing on sources from many cultures, we explore the implications of this perspective on disgust. Some of the issues we consider are the nature of the objects of disgust and why they are virtually all of animal origin, the meanin...
Publisher Summary This chapter highlights the recent research on the selective exposure to information. The term “selective exposure” implies several assumptions concerning the decision-making process. It assumes that the seeking out of decision relevant information does not cease once a decision is made. This notion also implies that this post-decisional information seeking and evaluation is not impartial but, rather, is biased by certain factors activated during the decision-making process. Th...
Cultural phenomena may show considerable stability over time and space. Transmission mechanisms responsible for their maintenance are worthy of theoretical and empirical inquiry; they are complex and each possible pathway has different effects on evolutionary stability of traits, as can be shown theoretically. A survey designed to evaluate the importance of some components of cultural transmission on a variety of traits showed that religion and politics are mostly determined in the family, a mod...
#1Attila Pohlmann(USFQ: Universidad San Francisco de Quito)H-Index: 2
Abstract The connection between plant-based diets and compassion is intuitive. Prior research has demonstrated that food of ethical origin subjectively tastes better to consumers who embrace ethical values. Since meat avoiders generally internalize the values associated with the avoidance of animal-derived products, higher levels of compassion are expected to enhance the subjective taste of meatless food choices, which has implications for lowering barriers to the adoption of vegetarian diets. T...
Abstract Meat consumption is increasingly seen as unsustainable, unhealthy, and unethical. Understanding what factors help people reduce their meat intake is urgently needed. One such factor is meat disgust, a feeling reported by many vegetarians, and which could be a promising basis for meat reduction interventions. However, meat disgust and its impact on meat consumption is poorly understood. We examined meat disgust and its role in vegetarianism and reducing meat intake in a cross-sectional a...
Abstract Why do many companies use a business case frame when referring to their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities? Two experiments (N = 1687) show that using a business case frame makes for a better impression management strategy than moral frames. By signaling that CSR activities are driven by instrumental reasons, and therefore not diagnostic of a company's moral character, a business case frame (and also a hybrid frame) suppresses accusations of hypocrisy. Consequently, when c...
#2Daniel L. Rosenfeld(UCLA: University of California, Los Angeles)H-Index: 8
Last. Jorge Guardiola(UGR: University of Granada)H-Index: 15
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Abstract Plant-based diets are beneficial to human health and environmental sustainability but suffer from low rates of adherence. For example, many people who self-identify as vegetarian sporadically eat meat and eventually give up their vegetarian diet entirely. We theorize that valuing a lifestyle of pro-environmental behaviors can enable people to adhere to a plant-based diet more successfully. In the current survey study, we tested this prediction among plant-based dieters for two outcomes:...
#1Daniel L. Rosenfeld(UCLA: University of California, Los Angeles)H-Index: 8
#2A. Janet Tomiyama(UCLA: University of California, Los Angeles)H-Index: 23
Research on the psychology of eating behavior often treats vegetarians as a monolithic group. Yet, a considerable proportion of people (17% in Study 1) who self-identify as vegetarian are actually ...
Last. Wiebke Bleidorn(UC Davis: University of California, Davis)H-Index: 31
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Abstract Previous research suggests that there are four primary motives to eat meat: that it is natural, normal, necessary, or nice. However, these motives have not yet been distinguished empirically; the lack of a measurement tool that can distinguish these motives has contributed to a literature that focuses primarily on meat-eating motivation or justification in general, as opposed to differences between these motives. We developed a 19-item measure, the Motivations to Eat Meat Inventory (MEM...
Background: Research often reports on the anthropometric and biochemical profile of vegetarians and non-vegetarians, yet few have compared nutritional knowledge in both populations. This cross-sectional study compared nutritional knowledge, anthropometric profile and total cholesterol in vegetarians and non-vegetarians. In addition, the motivations for choosing a vegetarian diet were analyzed. Methods: A registry card and a questionnaire were administered to evaluate sociodemographic, anthropome...
#1Joop de Boer(VU: VU University Amsterdam)H-Index: 24
#2Harry Aiking(VU: VU University Amsterdam)H-Index: 28
Abstract A shift to a more healthy and sustainable diet (as recommended by the EAT Lancet Commission report) is currently hampered by persistent choices for meat, which are based on stable preferences and positive feedback mechanisms at the individual, social, and economic/organizational level. This paper puts forward the view that proposals for a diet shift will fall short without broad social legitimation, aimed at a change in social norms. That what previously belonged to the domain of morall...
Previous studies have identified health, the environment and animal welfare as key motivations for becoming and remaining vegetarian/vegan. However, the idea of vegetarianism/veganism appears to have interesting facets that go beyond those drivers. This paper describes and examines this attraction. Twenty-six in depth interviews and two group discussions were conducted using the Morphological Psychology approach, which allows the revelation of conscious as well as unconscious drivers based on th...