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?
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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)