Meijer, Hanna (2025) Who Speaks Up? Moral Conviction as Motivator to Advocate for Meatless Diets. Bachelor thesis, Psychology.
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Abstract
The temperature of the earth is rising and environmental issues are becoming more prevalent. A big contributor to global warming is meat production. Individual greenhouse gas emissions would be reduced by half if people were to switch to a meatless diet. Despite awareness of environmental consequences of meat production, eating meat is still the norm. To drive change, vegans and vegetarians must start speaking up. They might not do this, and conform to majority in public, due to the fear of social judgment and exclusion. Although majority does not speak up, some do. This study investigates what distinguishes those that do speak up from those that do not, focusing on the strength of moral conviction. It is argued that individuals higher in moral conviction are more likely to speak up than those lower in moral conviction. It was also expected that moral conviction would be higher within vegans since they have a more extreme diet, and that they therefore would be more likely to stand up for themselves. A study was conducted in which participants (N = 84) were put in a position to either conform to a meat-eating majority or stand up for what they believe in. Prior to this, different constructs, including moral conviction, were measured. Although a positive effect was found between moral conviction and speaking up, this effect was nonsignificant. As for the difference between vegans an vegetarians, a significant difference in moral conviction scores was found. However, this had no influence on speaking up behaviour.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Bachelor) |
|---|---|
| Supervisor name: | Sharpe, E.J. |
| Degree programme: | Psychology |
| Differentiation route: | None [Bachelor Psychology] |
| Date Deposited: | 26 Feb 2025 12:51 |
| Last Modified: | 26 Feb 2025 12:51 |
| URI: | http://gmwpublic.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/4729 |
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