Results of my 2024 r/Vegan Survey on what influences people to go Vegan.
I conducted a survey in the largest Vegan Online Community (the r/vegan subreddit) on why people go Vegan in February 2024. The survey consisted of 20 questions asking which interventions played a significant role in people’s decisions to go Vegan (aswell as some general question). The first question of the survey can be found here, all following questions are linked from it: https://www.reddit.com/r/vegan/comments/1arfnyc/the_2024_rvegan_survey_part_1_conversations_with/
Primary goal of this survey: My primary aim compared to similar polls in the past (such as this one: https://vomad.life/survey/ ) was to find out for what percentage of people who came in contact with a specific intervention this intervention played a role in their decision to go Vegan. (Hypothetical example: A lot more people might have seen Vegan posts on Social Media than might have come in contact with Street Activism prior to going Vegan, yet if Street Activism played a significant role in their decision to go Vegan for a higher percentage of people who came in contact with it than Social Media posts, it might still be a more promising intervention overall.)
Part 1 - Interventions with played a significant role in their decision to go Vegan for the largest number of people who came in contact with them before going Vegan:
In this first part of the results, I want to answer the primary question of the survey: which intervention played a significant role in their decision to go Vegan for the largest percentage of people exposed to it prior to going Vegan:
1 − 91,7% - Watching a Vegan Documentary played a significant role in their decision to go Vegan for 122 out of 133 people who saw such a Documentary before going Vegan.
2 − 83,3% - Participating in a Vegan Starter Challenge played a significant role in their decision to go Vegan for 10 out of 12 people who participated in such a challenge before going Vegan.
3 − 80,4% - Conversations with friends and family members played a significant role in their decision to go Vegan for 131 out of 163 people who had such conversations before going Vegan.
4 − 80,4% - Vegan Speeches played a significant role in their decision to go Vegan for 45 out of 56 people who saw such Speeches before going Vegan.
5 − 78,4% - Books and scientific articles played a significant role in their decision to go Vegan for 58 out of 74 people who had read them before going Vegan.
6 − 74,5% - Short Videos on Social Media played a significant role in their decision to go Vegan for 70 out of 94 people who had seen such videos before going Vegan.
7 − 64,8% - Posts on Social Media played a significant role in their decision to go Vegan for 92 out of 142 people who saw such posts before going Vegan.
8 − 59,3% - Interacting with animals in real life played a significant role in their decision to go Vegan for 83 out of 140 people who had frequent contact with animals before going Vegan.
9 − 57,1% - Public events other than street activism played a significant role in their decision to go Vegan for 8 out of 14 people who attended such an event before going Vegan.
10 − 54,9% - Influencers/Celebrities played a significant role in their decision to go Vegan for 28 out of 51 people who came in contact with a Vegan Influencer/Celebrity before going Vegan.
11 − 42,9% - Reports about Veganism in the Media played a significant role in their decision to go Vegan for 15 out of 35 people who saw/heard positive reports about Veganism before going Vegan.
12 − 35% - Vegan and Animal Rights Organizations played a significant role in their decision to go Vegan for 14 out of 40 people who came in contact with such organizations before going Vegan.
13 − 34,1% - More and cheaper Vegan Products being available played a significant role in their decision to go Vegan for 47 outof 138 people who live in an area where Vegan products are available cheaply and easily.
14 − 31,4% - Vegan/Animal Rights street activism played a significant role in their decision to go Vegan for 11 out of 35 people who were confronted with street activism before going Vegan.
Notes on part 1:
It is not be entirely fair to compare these numbers, as some of them require deliberate participation (such as watching an entire Documentary or signing up to a Vegan Starter Challenge) while some of them are easier to ‚stumble upon‘ (such as a post on Social Media or coming in contact with Vegan Street Activism), and we would expect interventions that require deliberate participation to have significantly higher percentages of people for whom these played a significant part in their decision to go Vegan compared to those people can more easily ‚stumble upon‘.
Also, some of these interventions (such as Vegan Starter Challenges or Public Events) had a very low number of people who answered that they participated in them before going Vegan, which makes their results less reliable.
Part 2 - Interventions people most commonly came in contact with overall:
While the primary aim of the survey was to find out what percentage of people who came in contact with different interventions were significantly impacted in their decision to go Vegan by those interventions, I think it is also interesting to look at which types of interventions the largest number of people came in contact with in the first place. Here are the 6 most common interventions (over 40%):
1 − 92,6% or 138 out of 149 people who responded to the survey had frequent contact with animals in real life before going Vegan.
2 − 71,4% or 140 out of 196 people who responded to the survey had heard of a Vegan starter Challenge before going Vegan.
3 − 59,9% or 142 out of 237 people who responded to the survey saw Vegan posts on Social Media (other than Short Videos) before going Vegan.
4 − 57,8% or 163 out of 282 people who responded to the survey had conversations about Veganism with friends or family members before going Vegan.
5 − 53,4% or 133 out of 249 people who responded to the survey saw a Vegan Documentary before going Vegan.
6 − 45,4% or 94 out of 207 people who responded to the survey saw Vegan Short Videos on Social Media before going Vegan.
Part 3 - Interventions sorted by topic (Animals/Ethics, Environment, Health)
The first 4 questions of the survey aswell as questions 6 and 7 sorted answers by topic (for example: Conversations about Animals/Ethics vs. Conversations about the Environment vs. Conversations about health, added up this is how many responses each of these three topics got.
Animals/ethics – 373 votes
Environment – 52 votes
Health – 59 votes
Conclusions:
While this survey was not conducted according to scientific standards and with the notes on part 1 aswell as the notes below in mind, I am personally taking the following conclusions from this survey (Please take these with a huge grain of Salt!):
- Documentaries and Conversations with Friends and Family Members seem to be the two standout interventions, that convinced a very high percentage of people who saw/had them to go Vegan, and reached a very high percentage of participants overall.
- Vegan starter Challenges might be highly effective if people sign up to them, but too few survey participants participated in a Vegan Starter Challenge to say this with any confidence.
- Our movement might be overly focused on street activism, considering it had the lowest percentage of people exposed to it being significantly influenced by it. (They might however still be a great intervention to build capacity in the movement and get more people to start being active.)
Notes:
- The survey originally had an accompanying post explaining what it was all about which linked to the first part of the survey. I also promoted the survey by posting a link to this accompanying post on other subreddits, aswell as other Social Media platforms outside reddit. Unfortunately, this accompanying post was removed by the r/Vegan moderators.
- Several people pointed out that conducting a survey of 20 questions with 20 different linked polls on reddit was quite difficult to navigate through, which likely resulted in a lot more people answering the first few questions compared to the last few.
- The survey was conducted online, which might favor interventions people come in contact with online (like Social Media Posts or Documentaries) over real life interventions (like Street Activism or contact with Animals)
- Questions 16-19 of the survey were about participants’ age, gender, location and how long they have been vegan. Compared to other surveys among Vegans, it is particularely noteworthy that more participants identify as male than female, while comparable surveys almost always have a higher amount of female participants. This was to be expected, as reddit is overwhelmingly male, but it also means that the participants poorly represent the overall Vegan Community.
Executive summary: A survey of r/Vegan subreddit members finds that watching vegan documentaries and having conversations with friends and family play the biggest roles in convincing people to become vegan.
Key points:
91.7% of respondents said watching vegan documentaries significantly influenced their decision to go vegan.
80.4% said conversations with friends and family played a significant role in their decision.
The survey suggests focusing less on street activism and more on documentaries and personal conversations to promote veganism.
Limitations include sample bias towards redditors and difficulty navigating the lengthy survey format.
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