Can I also suggest though that this tendency should be balanced by the potential positive impact of owning a pet. Jonathan Safran Foer quotes Oxford historian Sir Keith Thomas:
the spread of pet-keeping… created the psychological foundation for the view that some animals at least were entitled to moral consideration.
I’ve no idea about whether studies of this have been done, but it seems plausible at least that a child in a pet-owning family is more likely to develop some level of empathy for animals, and more likely to question the hypocrisy of treating cats and dogs so well and other animals so abysmally.
In pre- domestic pet societies such as most of the second and third worlds today, empathetic attitudes towards animals are often non-existent (except when there are religions focussed on alleviation of suffering such as in India). There’s just little basis at all for caring about the experience of animals. Thus pets may help train moral consideration for animals, and may be worth the meat-consumption tradeoff that they require.
But that’s a very tentative may… the likelihood of children in pet-owning families becoming vegetarian or making pro-animal interventions is probably so marginal that it doesn’t counteract all the extra chickens that their cat or dog needs.
Results from 273 individuals responding
to a survey on an internet platform revealed that participants with greater childhood attachment to a pet reported greater meat avoidance as adults, an effect that disappeared when controlling for animal empathy. Greater childhood pet attachment was also related to the use of indirect, apologetic justifications for meat consumption, and this effect too, was mediated by empathy toward animals.Child pet ownership itself predicted views toward animals but not dietary behavior or meat-eating justifications. The authors propose a sequence of events by which greater childhood pet attachment leads to increased meat avoidance, focusing on the central role played by empathy toward animals
Here’s another study from Rothgerber which could be relevant:
The present research examined pet ownership, current pet diet, and guilt associated with pet diet among a fairly large sample of non-meat-eaters (n = 515). It specifically focused on the conflict that pits feeding one’s pet an animal-based diet that may be perceived as best promoting their well-being with concerns over animal welfare and environmental degradation threatened by such diets, here labeled the vegetarian’s dilemma. Questionnaire responses indicated that ethically motivated meat abstainers were more likely to own pets and owned more of them than those motivated by health concerns or a combination of ethical and health concerns. Vegans and those resisting meat on ethical grounds were more likely to feed their pet a vegetarian diet and expressed the greatest concerns over feeding their pet an animal-based diet. For vegans and ethical meat abstainers, it is suggested that questions concerning what to feed their pet approaches a tragic tradeoff contrasting two sacred values: protecting the well-being of their pets and protecting the well-being of other animals and the environment. For meat abstainers motivated by health concerns, this constitutes a relatively easy moral problem because the primary concern for such individuals is the health of their pet with less or no regard for other ramifications of the decision, i.e., harming other animals or the environment.
I’m unsure about the methodology of that experiment—it seems that the survey asked people to list details about their pet first, which could potentially ‘pre-load’ a fond mental image of a particular childhood pet and affect later answers, even though such a mental image would never arise when someone was going about their day-to-day meat shopping.
Nevertheless, the results are interesting and I think that more work needs to be done in this area.
If this is the justification for having a pet, it would seem that a pig would be the best choice (for someone living where pigs are allowed). They can be healthy without eating meat and they are likely more effective at promoting veganism.
It would be interesting to see a study on this, it certainly seems plausible—a survey asking for the number of family pets throughout childhood and their current dietary choices might be illuminating.
In any case, I would still argue that this should be done with a non-meat-eating pet over a meat-eating one.
Can I also suggest though that this tendency should be balanced by the potential positive impact of owning a pet. Jonathan Safran Foer quotes Oxford historian Sir Keith Thomas:
I’ve no idea about whether studies of this have been done, but it seems plausible at least that a child in a pet-owning family is more likely to develop some level of empathy for animals, and more likely to question the hypocrisy of treating cats and dogs so well and other animals so abysmally.
In pre- domestic pet societies such as most of the second and third worlds today, empathetic attitudes towards animals are often non-existent (except when there are religions focussed on alleviation of suffering such as in India). There’s just little basis at all for caring about the experience of animals. Thus pets may help train moral consideration for animals, and may be worth the meat-consumption tradeoff that they require.
But that’s a very tentative may… the likelihood of children in pet-owning families becoming vegetarian or making pro-animal interventions is probably so marginal that it doesn’t counteract all the extra chickens that their cat or dog needs.
You’re in luck, there is a study on this:
http://vegstudies.univie.ac.at/fileadmin/user_upload/p_foodethik/Rothgerber__Hank_2014._Childhood_pet_ownership__attachment_to_pets__and_subsequent_meat_avoidance.pdf
Here’s another study from Rothgerber which could be relevant:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195666313001499
Thanks, that’s a good find.
I’m unsure about the methodology of that experiment—it seems that the survey asked people to list details about their pet first, which could potentially ‘pre-load’ a fond mental image of a particular childhood pet and affect later answers, even though such a mental image would never arise when someone was going about their day-to-day meat shopping.
Nevertheless, the results are interesting and I think that more work needs to be done in this area.
If this is the justification for having a pet, it would seem that a pig would be the best choice (for someone living where pigs are allowed). They can be healthy without eating meat and they are likely more effective at promoting veganism.
It would be interesting to see a study on this, it certainly seems plausible—a survey asking for the number of family pets throughout childhood and their current dietary choices might be illuminating.
In any case, I would still argue that this should be done with a non-meat-eating pet over a meat-eating one.