Reasoning to Justify Eating Animals Varies With Age
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9646252 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Luke Mcguire (0000-0001-8178-7922, University of Exeter , Exeter, corresponding author), Tina Bagus (0009-0005-3898-7116, DIPF Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education , Frankfurt), Alexander G Carter (0009-0005-4205-5792, University of Exeter , Exeter), Emma Fry (University of Exeter , Exeter), Nadira S Faber (0000-0001-9373-9549, University of Bremen , Bremen) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 96 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 953-965 |
| Publication date | 2025-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Child Development (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0009-3920 • E-ISSN: 1467-8624 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1111/cdev.14217 |
| PMID | 39891501 |
| OpenAlex | W4407066295 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
| References cited | 39 |
The present study examined the justifications used by children, adolescents, and adults to justify eating animals. Children (n = 100, Mage = 9.82, SD = 0.77, female n = 49) as compared to adolescents (n = 76, Mage = 14.0, SD = 1.62, female n = 36) and adults (n = 113, Mage = 44.1, SD = 14.4, female n = 54) were more ambivalent or opposed to eating animals, and they showed a distinct reasoning pattern. Children relied less on arguments about meat eating being natural or with to humane slaughter practices. These findings align with recent theoretical perspectives that reasoning may be used to counter cognitive dissonance arising from knowledge of food production systems
Ambivalence · Cognition · Cognitive dissonance · Developmental psychology · Psychiatry · Agriculture Sustainability and Environmental Impact · Animal Behavior and Welfare Studies · Olfactory and Sensory Function Studies · Psychology · Social Psychology
The Social Domain Approach to Children's Moral and Social Judgments
Don’t Mind Meat? The Denial of Mind to Animals Used for Human Consumption
Global food system emissions could preclude achieving the 1.5° and 2°C climate change targets
The Psychology of Eating Animals
Climate Change, Human Rights, and Social Justice
Adolescents' and Parents' Conceptions of Parental Authority and Personal Autonomy
The development of social knowledge
Children Value Animals More Than Adults Do
Do Animals’ Minds Matter Less, When Meat Gets Personal? Replications of Piazza and Loughnan (2016) in China
When Closing the Human–Animal Divide Expands Moral Concern
The Development of Speciesism
Extending Social Domain Theory with a Process-Based Account of Moral Judgments
Towards reduced meat consumption
Children Who Choose Not to Eat Meat
Age‐related differences in reasoning about the acceptability of eating animals
How bad is it to eat an intelligent chicken? Children's judgments of eating animals are less ‘self‐serving’ than adults
Not appropriate dinner table conversation? Talking to children about meat production
Rationalizing meat consumption. The 4Ns
Meat-related cognitive dissonance
Confronting the meat paradox in different cultural contexts
The role of meat consumption in the denial of moral status and mind to meat animals
When Do Children Dislike Ingroup Members? Resource Allocation from Individual and Group Perspectives
The development of intergroup resource allocation
How groups react to disloyalty in the context of intergroup competition
The moral standing of animals
Resolving the Meat-Paradox
| Unique citing works | 7 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 7 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 7 |