The morality of meat-eating: the role of social norms in childhood and adolescence

Diets high in animal-derived foods are associated with negative environmental and personal outcomes, yet, eating animals is a highly normative practice. Food preferences are formed in childhood, a period characterised by moral concern for animals (McGuire et al., 2022). At the same time, children use social norms to navigate moral situations. As meat-eating norms become internalised during development, dietary norms likely guide evaluations of meat-eating acceptability from an early age. This raises important questions to be addressed in the proposed research. First, when do children understand and apply social norms to a food context. Second, how do children evaluate and justify meat-eating when social norms are especially salient. And third, how are peers who defy these norms evaluated

Human relations with animals involved a moral conflict between caring for some animals, while tacitly endorsing harm to others. This 'meat-paradox' fosters a state of internal conflict, where individuals recognise inconsistency between their behaviours and moral concern for animals. Social norms are one powerful tool to reduce this conflict. Prior research has focused on the 4N's of meat-eating rationalization, showing people justify consumption by stating meat is natural, normal, necessary and nice. However, no work has examined how social norms are represented in youths' evaluations. This is critical as the salience of norm has been shown to influence children's thinking in other moral domains such as resource allocation and social exclusion.

This project will investigate how developmental trends in norm understanding influence youths' evaluations of meat-eating. Additionally, it will use novel paradigms to investigate how deviant peers who challenge norms are evaluated. This is important as these individuals represent potential changemakers who promote more sustainable alternatives.