The role of dietary choices and justice sensitivity in aggression permissiveness

Date

2024-08-04

Author

Durğun, Enes
Şahin, Seda Merve
Cingöz Ulu, Banu
Akkuş, Ayça Işıl

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In the current study, researchers look for a relationship between dietary status (choosing to be vegan, vegetarian, or not) and interpersonal aggression permissiveness since it is unclear whether vegans and vegetarians are only against violence towards animals, or whether they react similarly to interpersonal violence. Therefore, we examined the relationship between dietary status and interpersonal aggression permissiveness and the moderating role of justice sensitivity. The participants were 215 vegans (171 females), 111 vegetarians (102 females) and 253 meat-eaters (187 females) with an average age of 29.1 (SD=7.88). For the first two groups, we measured identification with their vegan/vegetarian identity, moral convictions regarding their dietary status, in addition to justice sensitivity and aggression permissiveness, which was taken from all three groups. We found that meat-eaters were more permissive of interpersonal aggression compared to vegans and vegetarians. We also found that vegans were more sensitive towards justice than meat-eaters, but vegetarians were not different in justice sensitivity compared to the other 2 groups. The moderating role of justice sensitivity in the relationship between dietary status and aggression permissiveness was not significant. Additionally, we tested the role of vegan/vegetarian identification, moral conviction in dietary status, and justice sensitivity in the permissiveness of interpersonal aggression but found both models to be non-significant. Overall, our findings show that choosing to be a vegan, and to a lesser extent vegetarian, carries with it a more generalized stance against violence (including interpersonal violence) and an increased sensitivity towards justice. Although the study is correlational and is vulnerable to confounds, and the findings are not as strong as one would expect, overall the results still speak to the possibility that dietary choices do reflect broader worldviews.

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https://hdl.handle.net/11511/112253

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Graduate School of Social Sciences, Conference / Seminar