Disentangling the meat paradox: A comparative review of meat‐related conflicts across dietary behaviours
Benjamin Buttlar & Shiva Pauer
Abstract
A growing field of research examines how people experience and resolve cognitive conflicts in their behaviours, particularly in relation to meat consumption. Despite the alleged importance of conflict in behaviour change, most research focuses on how conflict motivates individuals to change or maintain their conflicted behaviour but disregards that conflict may persist even after successful behaviour change. This oversight has contributed to seemingly contradictory conclusions by conflating different kinds of conflicts and has arguably constrained theory development. Our review thus delineates (a) how people with different dietary patterns in meat consumption are affected by meat-related ambivalence and dissonance, (b) differences in the characteristics (magnitude, frequency, moralization) of these conflicts, (c) boundary conditions of why conflict experiences arise, and (d) how these factors determine the downstream consequences of conflict. This allows us to derive several novel predictions, ranging from why conflict avoidance strategies may sometimes paradoxically increase the likelihood of experiencing conflict to the distinct roles of capability, opportunity, and motivation in shaping the behavioural consequences of conflict. By re-evaluating prevailing assertions in the literature on meat-related conflict, we offer numerous theoretical and practical implications regarding cognitive conflict and the psychology of meat consumption and avoidance.
Evidence weight
Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40
| F · citation impact | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
| M · momentum | 0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07 |
| V · venue signal | 0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03 |
| R · text relevance † | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.