"Meating halfway": Exploring the attitudes of meat eaters, veg*ns, and occasional meat eaters toward those who eat meat and those who do not eat meat.

VEGETARIANISM; MEAT; ATTITUDE (Psychology); INGROUPS (Social groups); CONTENT analysis

Empirical studies have persistently reported negative attitudes of meat eaters toward vegetarians and vegans (veg*ns), but scant attention has been paid to veg*ns' attitudes toward meat eaters. We aimed to investigate the attitudes of meat eaters and veg*ns from both perspectives. In addition, we explored the attitudes of occasional meat eaters. We performed a cross-sectional study (Study 1) among meat eaters, veg*ns, and occasional meat eaters, as well as a content analysis of publicly available tweets (Study 2). Study 1 (N = 477, Mage = 23.45, SD = 5.91) showed that the attitudes of veg*ns toward meat eaters are significantly more negative compared to the attitudes of meat eaters toward veg*ns, but both were lower than the midpoint on scales measuring negative attitudes toward the other. Study 2 showed that only a small portion (<1%) of tweets (N = 1,328) on meat eating or veg*nism contained signs of negative attitudes. The two studies provide little evidence of the existence of strong negative attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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