Unpalatable truths: Commitment to eating meat is associated with strategic ignorance of food-animal minds

Animal minds are of central importance to debates about their rights and welfare. Remaining ignorant of evi-dence that animals have minds is therefore likely to facilitate their mistreatment. Studying samples of adults and students from the UK and US we found that, consistent with motivational perspectives on meat consumption, those who were more (vs. less) committed to eating meat were more motivated to avoid exposure to information about food-animals' sentience (Studies 1), showed less interest in exposure to articles about intelligent food animals (Studies 2a and 2b), and were quicker to terminate exposure to internet pop-ups containing information about food-animals' minds (Studies 3a and 3b). At the same time, those who were more (vs. less) committed to eating meat approached information about companion-animals' minds (Studies 2a-3b) and unintelligent food animals (Studies 2a and 2b) in largely the same ways. The findings demonstrate that, within the UK and US, the desire to eat meat is associated with strategies to avoid information that is likely to challenge meat consumption.

Automated summary

This study found that individuals who are committed to eating meat tend to avoid exposure to information about animals' minds, indicating that ignorance about animal minds may contribute to mistreatment of animals.