EA - Influences on individuals adopting vegetarian and vegan diets by Jamie Elsey

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Influences on individuals adopting vegetarian and vegan diets, published by Jamie Elsey on August 25, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum.Topline summary points:Personal conversations/interactions are reported to be the most important influences in adopting a vegan or vegetarian diet, and most frequently also the first influence in getting someone interested in dietary changeInteractions with animals also remain a strong source of influenceExposure to documentaries, social media, and online videos are also attributed considerable importance, particularly among more recent adopters, and those whose diet was vegan (rather than vegetarian)Concerns over animal welfare are rated as the most important reasons for adopting a vegetarian or vegan diet, though environmental and health concerns are also rated relatively highly - again especially among more recent adoptersPublication noteThis post is based on data obtained in December 2019, and was produced by request on a short timeframe. As such, this is a 'blog post', not a substantive research report.BackgroundDecreasing animal-product consumption can have numerous benefits, from increasing the sustainability of the food system (Clark & Tilman, 2017) to reducing animal suffering (Broom, 2007; Bryant, 2019; Park & Singer, 2012). Yet, dietary change can be challenging. Factors such as habit, familiarity, taste preferences, food availability, cooking skills, social context, and cultural traditions can all pull against the adoption of a new diet (Peacock, 2023; Graça et al., 2019; Valli et al., 2019). Determining what methods are most effective for encouraging more plant-based diets may help guide advocates and change minds, ultimately reducing animal suffering and increasing food system sustainability.A growing body of literature is examining the question of what works to reduce animal-product consumption. Several systematic reviews (e.g., Bianchi et al., 2018a; Bianchi et al., 2018b; Graça et al., 2019) have collated experimental evidence for dietary change interventions. In experimental studies, the experimenters administer an intervention (e.g., education about environmental consequences of meat consumption), and evaluate how this affects a particular outcome (e.g., self-reported meat consumption). Despite generally having high internal validity, these study designs often have limited external validity because they test efficacy under ideal circumstances that are unlikely to be present in real-world situations. Furthermore, such studies often test different interventions in isolation and in different contexts, posing difficulties for the comparison of effects across interventions.An alternative approach is to examine what works retrospectively. That is, to ask: why did current vegetarians and vegans make that dietary change? Although previous work has examined this topic, most of it has been through informal surveys hosted on blogs (e.g., The Two Vegans, 2016; The Vegan Truth, 2013; VOMAD, 2018). This recruitment method can lead to biased samples (e.g., toward individuals who are particularly engaged in veganism and willing to answer questions about it without reimbursement). Other limitations of the prior surveys include having incomplete response options (e.g., assessing animal welfare motivations for going vegan but not health or environmental reasons: The Vegan Truth, 2013), assessing first but not main influences on dietary change, and not asking about the relative importance of different influences.Despite these limitations, this initial research suggests that personal connections and educational films or documentaries are some of the more important influences (VOMAD,2018; The Vegan Truth, 2013).The aim of this project was to provide a more comprehensive, systematic survey of what influences people to ado...