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FROM TOP: YICHUAN CAO/NURPHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES; E. OTWELLTHE FUTURE OF FOOD | NORMALIZING PLANT-BASED DIETS
consumption.” Some participants got a dynamic
norm statement: “Recent research has shown that,
over the last five years, 30 percent of Americans
have started to make an effort to limit their meat
consumption.” Participants in a control group
read that people are starting to limit the time they
spend on Facebook. While the static statement
emphasizes change in the present, the dynamic
statement emphasizes changes happening over time
and theoretically into the future, Sparkman says.
Roughly 20 percent of participants in the control
and static norm groups went on to order a meatless
lunch in the café compared with 34 percent of par-
ticipants in the dynamic norm condition, the team
reported in 2017 in Psychological Science. The results
suggest people’s values can shift, Sparkman says.Group dynamics
As Babulski grew older, she learned about the
health and environmental impacts of meat pro-
duction. Her resolve to stay vegetarian solidified,
and a once-impulsive decision became a way of life.
Babulski now shares her personal journey with
students in her environmental science course.
There’s always that student who treats her dietary
choices as a personal affront, Babulski says. One
student told her: “I’m going to eat three more
chickens because you’re vegetarian to make up for
the difference.”
People have long used food restrictions as a
proxy for group membership. Hindu and Muslim
people live side by side in South Asia, for instance,
but can identify members of their own group just
by noting who eats pork and who eats beef. “Food
taboos are to do with establishing both in andout groups,” says Harriet Ritvo, an environmental
historian at MIT.
Divisions around food can encourage tribal iden-
tities. For instance, Jewish people in Chicago who
avoid leavened food during Passover often feel
disconnected from their non-Jewish peers, Kaitlin
Woolley, a behavioral scientist at Cornell University,
and colleagues reported in 2020 in the Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology. But that sense of
alienation helps them forge stronger connections
with their Jewish peers. In a way, the Passover tribe
grows stronger.
“In the West ... to become a vegetarian is a very
conscious choice to deviate from what is socially
normal,” says social psychologist Daniel Rosenfeld
of UCLA. “To form a community is often a way to
buffer against that feeling of social alienation.”
Strong food-based communities help those
within the group, but can repel those outside the
group, such as Babulski’s chicken-eating student.
Research shows that when people identify a certain
diet, such as kosher or vegan, with an out-group,
they can develop negative attitudes about the diet
or avoid those “specialty” foods.
For instance, setting apart vegetarian items and
labeling them “vegetarian” on a menu decreased
the percentage of nonvegetarians who chose those
entrées versus when the options were incorporated
into the main menu, researchers reported in 2020
in the Journal of Environmental Psychology.
But there are ways to thwart that us-versus-
them mentality, says Michael Schmitt, a socialMany fast food chains, including Burger King, now offer
plant-based burgers. Someday, these changes to the food
environment may make veggie options the norm.Menu descriptions affect food choiceMenu language framingVegetarian Pro-environmental Neutral menuPercent of participants who selected a vegetarian dishLabeling decisions
Three groups of online
participants who were
meat eaters saw differ-
ent menus: One menu
set vegetarian choices
apart and called them
“vegetarian,” one labeled
them as good for the
environment and a third
listed vegetarian and
nonvegetarian items
together. The vegetarian
framing was least likely
to lead to veggie orders.
SOURCE: D. KRPAN AND
N. HOUTSMA/JOURNAL OF
ENVIRONMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
2020
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