The Social Cost Of Adopting A Plant-based Diet.

Abstract

Dietary choices contribute to one’s environmental footprint and shape social identity. Evidence suggests that adopting plant-based diets (i.e., vegetarianism and veganism) may solve some environmental, health, and animal welfare issues. Yet, this decision leads to the formation of a social identity and out-group bias referred to as “vegephobia”. In this paper, I provide a first measure of the presence of vegephobia using social preferences in an online experimental economic environment. I estimate inequity aversion parameters of omnivore dictators (i.e., meat eaters) contingent on their matched partner’s dietary identity and test for the presence of vegephobia (pre-registered hypotheses). I also elicit recipients’ expectations of discriminatory behaviors. Confirmatory results reject the presence of vegephobia in the economic environment. Further exploratory results reveal some vegephobia driven by the dictators’ personal characteristics and social environments. Paradoxically, vegans report experiencing vegephobia but expect pro-social choices from out-group members. The results imply that vegephobia might be context-specific and that the mechanisms are not captured by individuals’ social preferences.

Generated Summary

This research, conducted as an experimental economic study, investigates the phenomenon of vegephobia – the social cost associated with adopting a plant-based diet. It aims to measure the presence of vegephobia by examining how omnivores’ social preferences are influenced by the dietary identity of those they interact with, specifically, vegetarians and vegans. The study utilizes a between-subject design within an online experiment, where participants are exposed to different dietary identities. The core methodology involves a modified version of the dictator game to assess and quantify vegephobia. Researchers estimate inequity aversion parameters to quantify the degree of out-group bias in the omnivore participants. The primary goal is to examine whether dietary choices, particularly the decision to abstain from meat, lead to discrimination and to explore the underlying mechanisms of such social biases in an economic environment.

Key Findings & Statistics

• The study was conducted online using Prolific, recruiting 1483 participants from the United States, with a final sample size of 1436 observations after data cleaning.
• The experiment had three conditions: Omnivore (OMNI), Vegetarian (VGT), and Vegan (VGN). Dictators were randomly assigned to one of these conditions, with varying recipients.
• The mean age of dictators in OMNI was 40.09, in VGN 37.65, and in VGT 38.17, while the mean age of recipients was 34.58.
• Dictators in the OMNI treatment were older on average than those in the VGN and VGT treatments.
• The proportion of males and females were balanced across the treatments for dictators and recipients, and the typical dictator’s profile was a white left-winger with bachelor’s degree or higher.
• In the VGN treatment, 13% reported having a yearly income of less than $10,000.
• The research used a mixed logit model to estimate inequity aversion parameters, assuming a correlation between the alpha (a) and beta (β) parameters.
• No treatment differences were found in envy levels between OMNI and VGN and OMNI and VGT treatments when using two-sided tests.
• The main hypotheses were tested using one-sided tests, with a significance level of 0.05, and the study corrected for multiple hypothesis testing using the Holm-Bonferroni method.
• Dictators in the VGT treatment showed less guilt (aversion to advantageous inequality) than dictators in the OMNI treatment, as per two-sided Bi coefficient testing.
• Exploratory results reveal that females in the VGN treatment showed less envy.
• Dictators who identify as white, or have higher levels of education, and who are left-wing or independent, displayed greater vegephobia (i.e., less guilt)
• Vegans reported experiencing greater discrimination in their daily lives compared to vegetarians and omnivores, as indicated by two-sided Wilcoxon rank-sum test (p-value < 0.01).

Other Important Findings

• The study rejects the pre-registered hypotheses, indicating no significant difference in the level of envy towards vegans or vegetarians among omnivores.
• Exploratory analyses revealed less guilt among dictators in the VGT condition compared to OMNI, but no such effect was seen in the VGN condition.
• The presence of a vegetarian or vegan friend in a dictator’s social circle led to increased vegephobia in the form of less guilt and greater envy.
• Vegans, despite reporting experiencing more discrimination, did not expect greater discrimination in the choice task.
• The study indicated that the mechanisms of vegephobia might be context-specific, and the social preference channel might not be the correct mechanism to capture it.

Limitations Noted in the Document

• The recipient’s dietary identity saliency might have induced some experimenter demand.
• The study’s setting may not perfectly capture real-life social interactions where dietary identities are revealed.
• The sample was plant-based diet friendly, which could have hindered the presence of vegephobia.
• The study acknowledges the potential for experimenter demand effects, especially due to the high salience of dietary identity in the initial pilot study.
• The experimental setup’s inability to fully replicate real-world social interactions where dietary identities are revealed, potentially underestimating vegephobia.
• The sample might be more accepting of plant-based diets, potentially skewing results towards a lower prevalence of vegephobia.

Conclusion

The study’s findings challenge the notion that mere adoption of a plant-based diet automatically triggers out-group discrimination among meat-eaters in an economic environment. The primary finding, that omnivores do not exhibit significantly higher levels of envy towards vegetarians or vegans, suggests that vegephobia might not be a straightforward consequence of encountering different dietary choices. This contrasts with the broader literature on social identity and discrimination, which often finds that out-group bias arises when identity is salient. The observed presence of vegephobia in the form of less guilt among vegetarians could suggest that individuals perceive those who are vegetarian more positively. However, as the tools used in the experiment were not adapted, and did not find any correlation between vegephobia and social preferences, the results suggest vegephobia might be context-specific, and other mechanisms, such as cognitive dissonance or social norms, could be more relevant in influencing social preferences. This underscores the need for further research to understand how these biases operate in real-world settings. The study also highlights the complexity of studying these issues within experimental economics, emphasizing the importance of considering various factors like the measurement tools and the context in which these interactions take place. The finding that vegans report more discrimination in everyday life but do not anticipate more discrimination in the experimental setting suggests that financial incentives may counter the social preference, revealing some limitations to these economic tools.