STUDY: Motivations and influences for going veg*n

Research studies have shown that people with ethical motivations tend to stay veg*n longer than those with health or environmental motivations.

JO ANDERSON: When it comes to vegan and vegetarian (veg*n) diets, people’s reasons for adopting them are among the most studied. For instance, studies have shown that health, environmental, and animal protection motivations are the most common in the U.S.— though they are not necessarily the same in other countries (e.g., India; Vietnam; the Netherlands). Research also suggests that people with ethical motivations tend to stay veg*n longer than those with health motivations.

In this study, we investigated the association of these different motivations with success over time. We expected to replicate the findings about the most common motivations and to find, similarly, that people with animal protection motivations would be more successful in their transition.

In addition to these motivations themselves, we can also think about the source of a motivation: whether it is self-driven or externally motivated. Past research focusing on health behaviors has shown that people are more likely to attain and maintain goals that they adopt for self-driven (intrinsic) reasons than goals that they adopt to please others…

This study includes 222 members of the general public in the U.S. and Canada, all of whom had started transitioning to a vegan or vegetarian diet within the past two months. The Level of Commitment section of the first report shows that more than 90% of the sample said they would probably or definitely continue their new diet change permanently…

Below are the key findings:

• Self-driven motivations to go veg*n can be a powerful driver of success. Self-driven motivations come from within a person, like their personal values or moral identity, while external motivations include things like feeling pressured by others to succeed…
• Participants became less speciesist after going veg*n, and those who were more successful in reaching their veg*n goals experienced the greatest reduction in speciesism. Over the first six months of a new veg*n diet, people’s speciesism decreased significantly…
• Exposure to animal advocacy experiences tended to increase people’s consumption success on their new diets, regardless of whether animal welfare was their primary motivation or not. Namely, people who had seen unpleasant or graphic media of farmed animals (42%), watched a documentary (36%), and/or received information from an animal advocacy group (21%) all did better at reaching their goal level…
• Learning particular facts could also increase consumption success, but the context matters. About half of people (51%) had learned about how farmed animals are mistreated, and we found that this experience may reduce success if it is the only influence, but that negative association tended to disappear when experienced along with other influences…
• Overall, 42% of people’s veg*n journeys were motivated by health, 20% by animal protection, and 18% by environmental concern. However, these general motivations did not have any effect on how successful people were with their diets. Similar to previous research, health motivations were the most common reason for going veg*n…

For animal advocates it is recommended to:

• Encourage people to find and develop self-driven motivations.
• Gently encourage people who are already motivated to go veg*n for health or environmental reasons to learn about the benefits of their actions for animals too.
• Do not use health messaging alone, but do use it alongside animal protection and/or environmental messaging. SOURCE…

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