João Graça
Biographic Data
| ID | 208103 |
|---|---|
| NAME | João Graça |
| GIVEN NAMES | João |
| FAMILY NAME | Graça |
| SIGNATURE | GRAÇA J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Lisbon |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6868-9420 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 153 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Defensive reactions to a meat reduction intervention
Shifting from meat-centric to plant-based diets can mitigate climate change, improve public health, and reduce animal suffering, among other socially beneficial outcomes. However, efforts to encourage these changes sometimes provoke defensive reactions, and there is limited experimental evidence on how and why such reactions occur. We tested a brief meat reduction intervention in a preregistered experiment with a demographically representative sa…
Theory‐Driven Factors Related to the Decision to Become a Foster Caregiver Among Portuguese Adults
The persistent shortage of foster families remains a global concern. To support recruitment efforts, it is important to understand which factors are associated with different types of engagement with foster care among community samples. This study examined how several theory‐informed psychological and contextual variables (e.g., self‐efficacy, motivations, time availability and planning) were associated with awareness, willingness and intention t…
Associations between motivations for and against eating meat with four types of meat engagement
Because of its negative consequences for animal welfare, human health, and the environment, many individuals and institutions are interested in reducing meat consumption. To achieve this goal, it is important to understand the reasons people have both to eat meat (e.g., liking the taste) and to avoid it (e.g., environmental concerns), and how these reasons relate to meat engagement. However, existing research often examines motivations and outcom…
Why do people become a foster parent? Insights from a national study
Why do people become foster parents and how to recruit new families? A multi-informant study
Communicating Trends in Sustainability Transitions
An emerging line of research has been exploring how changes in social norms can lay the ground for shifts toward sustainability. This preregistered study investigated the influence of communicating static and dynamic norms (2 Static x 2 Dynamic, between-subjects design) on respondents' beliefs, intentions, information-seeking behavior, and policy support regarding plant-based food. Here, static norms referred to a minority of consumers who believ…
Exploring public support for farmed animal welfare policy and advocacy across 23 countries
Farmed animal policy and advocacy efforts both attempt to generate and depend upon public support. However, relatively little is known about the factors that predict support for animal protection legislation and advocacy across the globe. We analyse data from a large international survey (23 countries, n = 20,966) alongside other data sources on animal advocacy to investigate knowledge of factory farming, the connection between attitudes towards …
Vegetarian, vegan, or plant-based? Comparing how different labels influence consumer evaluations of plant-based foods
Market actors have a role to play in enabling sustainable food transitions. One challenge for these actors is how to promote plant-based foods in ways that appeal to a growing number of consumers. Here we test how different plant-based related labels affect consumer appraisals of a range of foods (cookies, sausages, cheese, chocolate, pasta). In two studies (pre-registered; NUSA = 1148, NGermany = 491), we examined the effects of a ‘vegetarian’, …
Promoting plant-based eating in meat-centric meal contexts
Objective: Shifting from meat-centric to plant-rich diets may help to enable healthier and more sustainable food systems. Here we present the results of a 1-week intervention to promote plant-based eating in a meat-centric food context (i.e. canteen). Design: The intervention included environmental restructuring strategies (e.g. promotional materials and menu redevelopment) and improvements to the offer of plant-based meals. The evaluation (sales…
How to enable healthier and more sustainable food practices in collective meal contexts
Collective meal contexts such as restaurants, cafeterias and canteens can help accelerate transitions to healthier and more sustainable diets. However, evidence from intervention studies on these contexts lacks integration. This scoping review aimed to map determinants of dietary change in collective meal contexts across multiple settings, interventions, target groups, and target behaviors. The review provided two main outcomes: (i) identifying i…
Insights into parents' and teachers' support for policies promoting increased plant-based eating in schools
Global environmental and public health challenges related to current food systems call for large-scale shifts towards increasingly plant-based diets, especially in Western meat-centric societies. School meal systems can play a role in these changes due to their widespread prevalence and multi-sectoral impact. However, there is a lack of evidence about how adults involved in the school meals system perceive school-based pro-environmental food poli…
Perceived barriers, drivers and enablers to becoming a foster family
Enabling sustainable food transitions in schools
Purpose Recent reviews and reports have highlighted the need for integrated, context-specific efforts to enable sustainable food transitions. This study aimed to identify pathways to promote healthier and more environmentally friendly food practices in school contexts, with a focus on increased plant-based eating. Design/methodology/approach The study used a systemic approach with data collected from relevant stakeholders in an EU country (Portug…
An appetite for meat? Disentangling the influence of animal resemblance and familiarity
Reasons, willingness, and intention to be a foster family
Opposition to Immigration and (Anti‐)Environmentalism
The social dominance–environmentalism nexus proposes that orientations for inequality and domination are expressed both in human–human and human–nature relations. In two studies, the present work applies and extends this proposition to understand endorsement of environmental values, concern with climate change, support for climate policies, and responsibility for climate action. In study one, using a representative random sample from Portugal ( N…
Consumer perceptions of conventional and alternative protein sources
From Pets to Pests
Positive relationships with pets can sometimes foster more positive judgments of other animals. The present study sought to examine the scope of this “pets as ambassadors” effect in relation to four meaningful animal categories (companion, farmed, predator, and pest) derived from the Animal Images Database (Animal.ID). The Animal.ID contains ratings from 376 Portuguese individuals on pet attachment and several dimensions related to animal attribu…
Green Light for Climate-friendly Food Transitions? Communicating Legal Innovation Increases Consumer Support for Meat Curtailment Policies
In light of increasing calls for environmental policies that reduce meat consumption and promote more plant-based diets (i.e. Meat Curtailment Policies, MCPs), this study aimed to increase knowledge on how consumers may react to these policies. Participants (N = 784) were randomly presented with a small real news piece about an actual law approval referring to a MCP, or assigned to a no-information control condition. The study measured a set of i…
Reducing meat consumption and following plant-based diets
Consumption orientations may support (or hinder) transitions to more plant-based diets
Meat, beyond the plate. Data-driven hypotheses for understanding consumer willingness to adopt a more plant-based diet
Attached to meat? (Un)Willingness and intentions to adopt a more plant-based diet
Moral Disengagement in Harmful but Cherished Food Practices? An Exploration into the Case of Meat
From assessing needs to designing and evaluating programs
Attached to meat? (Un)Willingness and intentions to adopt a more plant-based diet
Meat, beyond the plate. Data-driven hypotheses for understanding consumer willingness to adopt a more plant-based diet
Moral Disengagement in Harmful but Cherished Food Practices? An Exploration into the Case of Meat
Consumption orientations may support (or hinder) transitions to more plant-based diets
Consumer perceptions of conventional and alternative protein sources
Why do people become foster parents and how to recruit new families? A multi-informant study
Vegetarian, vegan, or plant-based? Comparing how different labels influence consumer evaluations of plant-based foods
Market actors have a role to play in enabling sustainable food transitions. One challenge for these actors is how to promote plant-based foods in ways that appeal to a growing number of consumers. Here we test how different plant-based related labels affect consumer appraisals of a range of foods (cookies, sausages, cheese, chocolate, pasta). In two studies (pre-registered; NUSA = 1148, NGermany = 491), we examined the effects of a ‘vegetarian’, …
From Pets to Pests
Positive relationships with pets can sometimes foster more positive judgments of other animals. The present study sought to examine the scope of this “pets as ambassadors” effect in relation to four meaningful animal categories (companion, farmed, predator, and pest) derived from the Animal Images Database (Animal.ID). The Animal.ID contains ratings from 376 Portuguese individuals on pet attachment and several dimensions related to animal attribu…
Insights into parents' and teachers' support for policies promoting increased plant-based eating in schools
Global environmental and public health challenges related to current food systems call for large-scale shifts towards increasingly plant-based diets, especially in Western meat-centric societies. School meal systems can play a role in these changes due to their widespread prevalence and multi-sectoral impact. However, there is a lack of evidence about how adults involved in the school meals system perceive school-based pro-environmental food poli…
An appetite for meat? Disentangling the influence of animal resemblance and familiarity
Learning Tractable Word Alignment Models with Complex Constraints
Word-level alignment of bilingual text is a critical resource for a growing variety of tasks. Probabilistic models for word alignment present a fundamental trade-off between richness of captured constraints and correlations versus efficiency and tractability of inference. In this article, we use the Posterior Regularization framework (Graça, Ganchev, and Taskar 2007) to incorporate complex constraints into probabilistic models during learning wit…
Moral Disengagement in Harmful but Cherished Food Practices? An Exploration into the Case of Meat
From assessing needs to designing and evaluating programs
Meat, beyond the plate. Data-driven hypotheses for understanding consumer willingness to adopt a more plant-based diet
Attached to meat? (Un)Willingness and intentions to adopt a more plant-based diet
Reducing meat consumption and following plant-based diets
Consumption orientations may support (or hinder) transitions to more plant-based diets
Green Light for Climate-friendly Food Transitions? Communicating Legal Innovation Increases Consumer Support for Meat Curtailment Policies
In light of increasing calls for environmental policies that reduce meat consumption and promote more plant-based diets (i.e. Meat Curtailment Policies, MCPs), this study aimed to increase knowledge on how consumers may react to these policies. Participants (N = 784) were randomly presented with a small real news piece about an actual law approval referring to a MCP, or assigned to a no-information control condition. The study measured a set of i…
Opposition to Immigration and (Anti‐)Environmentalism
The social dominance–environmentalism nexus proposes that orientations for inequality and domination are expressed both in human–human and human–nature relations. In two studies, the present work applies and extends this proposition to understand endorsement of environmental values, concern with climate change, support for climate policies, and responsibility for climate action. In study one, using a representative random sample from Portugal ( N…
Consumer perceptions of conventional and alternative protein sources
From Pets to Pests
Positive relationships with pets can sometimes foster more positive judgments of other animals. The present study sought to examine the scope of this “pets as ambassadors” effect in relation to four meaningful animal categories (companion, farmed, predator, and pest) derived from the Animal Images Database (Animal.ID). The Animal.ID contains ratings from 376 Portuguese individuals on pet attachment and several dimensions related to animal attribu…
Enabling sustainable food transitions in schools
Purpose Recent reviews and reports have highlighted the need for integrated, context-specific efforts to enable sustainable food transitions. This study aimed to identify pathways to promote healthier and more environmentally friendly food practices in school contexts, with a focus on increased plant-based eating. Design/methodology/approach The study used a systemic approach with data collected from relevant stakeholders in an EU country (Portug…
An appetite for meat? Disentangling the influence of animal resemblance and familiarity
Reasons, willingness, and intention to be a foster family
Promoting plant-based eating in meat-centric meal contexts
Objective: Shifting from meat-centric to plant-rich diets may help to enable healthier and more sustainable food systems. Here we present the results of a 1-week intervention to promote plant-based eating in a meat-centric food context (i.e. canteen). Design: The intervention included environmental restructuring strategies (e.g. promotional materials and menu redevelopment) and improvements to the offer of plant-based meals. The evaluation (sales…
How to enable healthier and more sustainable food practices in collective meal contexts
Collective meal contexts such as restaurants, cafeterias and canteens can help accelerate transitions to healthier and more sustainable diets. However, evidence from intervention studies on these contexts lacks integration. This scoping review aimed to map determinants of dietary change in collective meal contexts across multiple settings, interventions, target groups, and target behaviors. The review provided two main outcomes: (i) identifying i…
Insights into parents' and teachers' support for policies promoting increased plant-based eating in schools
Global environmental and public health challenges related to current food systems call for large-scale shifts towards increasingly plant-based diets, especially in Western meat-centric societies. School meal systems can play a role in these changes due to their widespread prevalence and multi-sectoral impact. However, there is a lack of evidence about how adults involved in the school meals system perceive school-based pro-environmental food poli…
Perceived barriers, drivers and enablers to becoming a foster family
Communicating Trends in Sustainability Transitions
An emerging line of research has been exploring how changes in social norms can lay the ground for shifts toward sustainability. This preregistered study investigated the influence of communicating static and dynamic norms (2 Static x 2 Dynamic, between-subjects design) on respondents' beliefs, intentions, information-seeking behavior, and policy support regarding plant-based food. Here, static norms referred to a minority of consumers who believ…
Exploring public support for farmed animal welfare policy and advocacy across 23 countries
Farmed animal policy and advocacy efforts both attempt to generate and depend upon public support. However, relatively little is known about the factors that predict support for animal protection legislation and advocacy across the globe. We analyse data from a large international survey (23 countries, n = 20,966) alongside other data sources on animal advocacy to investigate knowledge of factory farming, the connection between attitudes towards …
Vegetarian, vegan, or plant-based? Comparing how different labels influence consumer evaluations of plant-based foods
Market actors have a role to play in enabling sustainable food transitions. One challenge for these actors is how to promote plant-based foods in ways that appeal to a growing number of consumers. Here we test how different plant-based related labels affect consumer appraisals of a range of foods (cookies, sausages, cheese, chocolate, pasta). In two studies (pre-registered; NUSA = 1148, NGermany = 491), we examined the effects of a ‘vegetarian’, …
Theory‐Driven Factors Related to the Decision to Become a Foster Caregiver Among Portuguese Adults
The persistent shortage of foster families remains a global concern. To support recruitment efforts, it is important to understand which factors are associated with different types of engagement with foster care among community samples. This study examined how several theory‐informed psychological and contextual variables (e.g., self‐efficacy, motivations, time availability and planning) were associated with awareness, willingness and intention t…
Associations between motivations for and against eating meat with four types of meat engagement
Because of its negative consequences for animal welfare, human health, and the environment, many individuals and institutions are interested in reducing meat consumption. To achieve this goal, it is important to understand the reasons people have both to eat meat (e.g., liking the taste) and to avoid it (e.g., environmental concerns), and how these reasons relate to meat engagement. However, existing research often examines motivations and outcom…
Why do people become a foster parent? Insights from a national study
Why do people become foster parents and how to recruit new families? A multi-informant study
Psychology (19 works) · Agriculture Sustainability and Environmental Impact (15 works) · Food Waste Reduction and Sustainability (10 works) · Medicine (10 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Business (8 works) · Social Psychology (8 works) · Environmental Education and Sustainability (7 works) · Marketing (7 works) · Organic Food and Agriculture (6 works)