Moral rebels and dietary deviants: how stereotypes of moral minorities predict the social appeal of vegetables

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2021.105284

Commentary

This preregistered study investigated why omnivores view vegetarians and vegans as socially unattractive based on their status as condemned moral minorities.

Using the differences between morality and sociability recently demonstrated in research on the universal dimensions of stereotypic content, we predicted that vegetables would be perceived as more moral but less sociable compared to omnivores.

Lower perceived sociability, the researchers believe, would predict lower social attractiveness of vegetables.

This was supported by two additional stereotypes that have been theorized to be specifically associated with moral minorities: moral impressions and quirky impressions, and those who consciously reduce their meat intake, complementing the quantitative analysis with an analysis of stereotypical content omnivores freely associated with the diet group.

Thus, using a single-factor between-subjects design of experiment, a diverse sample of omnivores from the UK were randomly assigned to answer questions about any of the omnivores.

The results confirmed the majority of the hypotheses. Vegans were perceived to be more moral, but they were stereotyped more negatively.

Specifically, they were seen as quirkier, more moralistic in particular, and predictive of lower social attractiveness, although indirect effects via sociability were relatively small.

In particular, quasi-vegetarians shared the positive attributes of both non-quasi-vegetarian groups.

The free-association data are largely consistent with these results and provide additional direction for further investigation.