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Dissociation of Dairy from its Animal Origin and the Role of Disgust to Reduce Dairy Consumption

From PHAIR Society [The Society for the Psychology of Human-Animal Intergroup Relations]
September 2024

Might drawing consumers' attention to the animal-bodily origins of dairy milk (e.g., its basis in cow lactation) and the potential for pathogen risk reduce consumer interest in dairy?

dairy Cows
Max Saeling, Unsplash

What’s the article about? (At a glance)

Might drawing consumers' attention to the animal-bodily origins of dairy milk (e.g., its basis in cow lactation) and the potential for pathogen risk reduce consumer interest in dairy? Pedersen and Loughnan (2024) recently explored this question in a registered report published in PHAIR.

In Study 1, they had participants reflect on the bodily processes by which dairy cows lactate or digest their food. The lactation vignette emphasised the potential for “bacterial contamination”, whereas the digestion vignette emphasised the role of gut bacteria in the breaking down of grass. Participants indicated how disgusted they felt about consuming dairy milk and their willingness to consume it before and after the intervention. Relative to reading about digestion, thinking about cow lactation increased disgust towards dairy milk, which in turn reduced willingness to consume it.

In Study 2, a similar pre-post procedure was used, though the digestion condition was replaced with a neutral condition, where only baseline information about cows was presented. Participants indicated again how disgusted they felt about dairy milk, but the researchers also offered participants the opportunity to eat milk chocolate buttons to measure the intervention's impact on dairy consumption. The lactation information, again, increased feelings of disgust towards dairy milk, but there was no difference in milk chocolate consumption (serving size) between the lactation and neutral conditions.

Together, the studies demonstrate how thoughts about the animal origins of dairy milk, linked to the bodily processes involved in mammalian lactation and pathogen risk, can momentarily reduce appetite for milk and a willingness to consume it. However, these momentary attitudinal effects did not translate into actual reduction, at least not in terms of eating milk chocolate.

Implications for advocacy

Studies have shown that pathogen-linked disgust can be a strong deterrent of food consumption (see previous PHAIR blog on meat disgust). The Human League for example found that fish consumers were particularly troubled when learning about the potential for disease transmission within fish farms. One key direction for future work then is working out how these body and pathogen-linked concerns about dairy products can be harnessed to truly shift consumer decisions and increase the uptake of plant-based alternatives. Long-term changes in dairy consumption may require more personal and recurrent encounters with the unpalatable aspects of dairy production.

Link to the paper (Open Access)


Posted on All-Creatures.org: September 23, 2024
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