32 SCIENCE NEWS | May 7, 2022 & May 21, 2022
MPI43/MEDIAPUNCH/IPXTHE FUTURE OF FOOD | NORMALIZING PLANT-BASED DIETS
psychologist at Simon Fraser University in
Burnaby, Canada. One option is for researchers and
policy makers to promote more inclusive labels. For
instance, highlighting movement toward a more
flexitarian diet does not seem to trigger the same
sort of backlash as highlighting movement toward
a vegetarian diet, Schmitt says. “That offers people
an identity that might be closer to existing norms.”
Subtly changing the food environment to make
veggie options, rather than meat, the default is
another idea. For instance, simply increasing the
availability of vegetarian meals in a university caf-
eteria from a quarter of the choices to half the
choices increased sales of vegetarian entrées by
almost 8 percent, researchers reported in 2019 in
the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Then there’s the grocery store. Researchers
reported in March in PLOS Medicine that moving
Easter chocolates away from prominent locations,
like the store entrance and end of aisles, in a chain
of U.K. grocery stores caused sales of those items
to plummet. Compared with 151 stores that stuck
with business as usual, 34 stores that moved the
candy sold, on average, 21 kilograms less chocolate
per week. Assuming the average chocolate Easter
bunny weighs about 100 grams, that equals roughly
200 fewer bunnies sold per store each week.
Imagine if U.S. grocery store operators shunted
meat to hard-to-find locations, Schmitt says.
Changing perceptions of normal requires first envi-
sioning a new normal.Ripple effects
Given the sheer scope of climate change, how can
one person’s actions make a difference?
Using dynamic norms to change behavior hinges
on the simple premise that individual actions do,
in fact, matter. Research from the sustainability
field bears this out. From 2012 to 2015, officials in
Connecticut sought to get more people to installsolar panels through a program called Solarize
Connecticut. At that time, only 0.4 percent of
U.S. homeowners had solar panels, making their
use outside the ordinary. So volunteers traveled to
58 towns to encourage residents to make the
energy switch. Researchers reported in 2018 in
Nature that volunteers who had invested in solar
panels themselves convinced almost 63 percent
more residents to go solar than volunteers who
had made no such investment.
Conversely, individual inaction also matters. In a
now classic study from the 1960s appearing in the
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, male
undergraduate students sat in a room that slowly
filled with smoke. When the students were alone,
75 percent of them reported the situation. But
when others were in the room and failed to act,
only 10 percent of students reported the problem.
Doing nothing had become socially acceptable.
In essence, we live in a world filling with smoke
and must choose between inaction and action. Why
not choose action?
Babulski applies this philosophy to her own
teaching. Minus a naysayer or two, many of her
students come to realize the power of their indi-
vidual choices. “You can actually see students over
the course of the semester going, ‘Wow, the little
things I do actually do add up and make a differ-
ence,’ ” Babulski says.
Eventually, perhaps, a future Norman Rockwell
will paint a less meat-heavy meal on that American
dinner platter: beans, crickets or a plant-based
turkey. Imagine that.Explore more
Gregg Sparkman, Lauren Howe and Greg
Walton. “How social norms are often a barrier
to addressing climate change but can be part of
the solution.” Behavioural Public Policy.
October 2021.These posters promoted
Meatless Mondays in
New York City Public
Schools. Former Mayor
Bill de Blasio launched
the program in 2019 to
promote healthy eating
and reduce the city’s
environmental footprint.