Age-related differences in reasoning about the acceptability of eating animals

This is the final version. Available on open access from Wiley via the DOI in this recordData availability: The study was pre-registered using AsPredicted.org (for children: https://aspredicted.org/n3yg3.pdf, for adults: https://aspredicted.org/rg24e.pdf). Full materials and data can be accessed at https://osf.io/bea9m/?view_only=b9d75d7875464984bbc0f2190f5993cf. Our sample size was pre-registered, although due to the coronavirus pandemic we were unable to collect our pre-specified adolescent sample. The measures used in the study were pre-specified, and included further measures of speciesism, animal treatment and categorization that are published in the paper (McGuire et al., 2022). In our pre-registration, we stated that we would conduct multinomial logistic regression to predict use of social reasoning category use as a function of age and evaluation. However, an unexpectedly high percentage of participants provided multi-categorical reasoning responses (39% of participants used at least two categories). As a result of this, in the present paper we use a repeated measures ANOVA approach (see further information below). Our reasoning hypotheses were not pre-registered and can be treated as more exploratory than confirmatory.Children in the western world often are socialized as meat-eaters, while caring much about animals. Yet we know little about how children think about eating animals and animal products, which will have important consequences for global meat consumption. Participants (n = 479, 80% White British, 57% female; children n = 119, Mage = 10.03, SD = 0.72; young adults n = 181, Mage = 19.09, SD = 0.85; adults n = 179, Mage = 40.97, SD = 8.18) reasoned about the acceptability of eating animals and animal products. Using the framework of social domain theory, we found that that children focused on moral concerns (p < .001, ηp2 = .01), whereas adults referenced conventions about the natural and necessary components of eating meat. Participants across age groups reported eating animal products (e.g., milk) to be acceptable because animals were not harmed. Together these results indicate that attempts to reduce meat consumption ought to be tailored in a domain-specific manner to age groups