The experimental group reported higher agreement with the claim that “that cows, pigs, and chickens are intelligent, emotional individuals with unique personalities”. Does that matter?
Likely no, for similar reasons as discussed earlier. Beliefs and attitudes are nice. They’re certainly better than nothing. Maybe they’ll even help create a societal shift or cause someone to go vegetarian many years down the road. However, they just as well might not.
I’m not sure about this. Some people that are funding online ads want to reduce animal product consumption now. Others are primarily interested in effecting long-term values shifts, and merely use animal product consumption as a weak proxy for this. I’d be pretty independently interested in answering the question “which intervention is most effective at convincing people that cows, pigs, and chickens are intelligent, emotional individuals with unique personalities?”
If I knew which intervention best did that, and which most reduced animal product consumption, and they were different, I’m not sure which I’d be more excited about funding (but I’d be interested if other people have a strong opinion about this).
Interesting point. I suppose that Peter did pre-emptively respond to it when he noted that “it is still premature to do lots of studies on the relative effectiveness of certain vegetarian messaging … when we don’t even know if the absolute effectiveness is there yet.”
Furthermore, this would probably be really difficult to detect, as ads which aim to reduce animal product consumption now might actually be the most potent vector for effecting long-term value shifts—people who start integrating some vegetarianism into their diets are more likely to come across and even spread information showing the intelligence of factory farmed animals.
Given the problems faced by this study, I doubt we’ll have a clear answer to the real long-term effectiveness of various interventions any time soon. The best we can do at the moment is to try a combination of methods that appeal to diverse moral intuitions and interests.
I’m not sure about this. Some people that are funding online ads want to reduce animal product consumption now. Others are primarily interested in effecting long-term values shifts, and merely use animal product consumption as a weak proxy for this. I’d be pretty independently interested in answering the question “which intervention is most effective at convincing people that cows, pigs, and chickens are intelligent, emotional individuals with unique personalities?”
If I knew which intervention best did that, and which most reduced animal product consumption, and they were different, I’m not sure which I’d be more excited about funding (but I’d be interested if other people have a strong opinion about this).
Interesting point. I suppose that Peter did pre-emptively respond to it when he noted that “it is still premature to do lots of studies on the relative effectiveness of certain vegetarian messaging … when we don’t even know if the absolute effectiveness is there yet.”
Furthermore, this would probably be really difficult to detect, as ads which aim to reduce animal product consumption now might actually be the most potent vector for effecting long-term value shifts—people who start integrating some vegetarianism into their diets are more likely to come across and even spread information showing the intelligence of factory farmed animals.
Given the problems faced by this study, I doubt we’ll have a clear answer to the real long-term effectiveness of various interventions any time soon. The best we can do at the moment is to try a combination of methods that appeal to diverse moral intuitions and interests.