RESEARCH ARTICLE A dual-process motivational model of attitudes towards vegetarians and vegans Madeline Judge* & Marc S. Wilson† * The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia † Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand Correspondence Madeline Judge, Department of Management and Marketing, The University of Melbourne, Level 10, 198 Berkeley Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia. E-mail: madeline.judge@unimelb.edu.au Received: 17 June 2016 Accepted: 16 March 2018 https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2386 Keywords: vegetarianism, veganism, right-wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, dual-process model Abstract Vegetarians and vegans comprise a minority of most western populations. However, relatively little research has investigated the psychological foun- dations of attitudes towards this minority group. The following study employs a dual process model of intergroup attitudes to explore the motiva- tional basis of non-vegetarians’ attitudes towards vegetarians and vegans. Participants were 1,326 individuals recruited through advertisements in a national newspaper in New Zealand. Non-vegetarian participants first completed measures of ideological attitudes and social worldviews, and then were randomly assigned to complete a measure of outgroup attitu- des towards either vegetarians or vegans. Although non-vegetarians’ atti- tudes towards both vegetarians and vegans were generally positive, attitudes towards vegans were significantly less positive than attitudes towards vegetarians, and male participants expressed significantly less posi- tive attitudes towards both outgroups than female participants. The struc- tural equation model predicting attitudes towards vegetarians and vegans fit the data well and explained a significant amount of the variance in attitudes. To date, most research on the psychological founda- tions of intergroup attitudes has focused on a fairly nar- row range of salient group categories, such as ethnic identity, gender, or sexual orientation (Crandall & War- ner, 2005; Dovidio, Newheiser, & Leyens, 2012). The aim of the current research was to apply a theoretical model of the motivational basis of intergroup attitudes to a more novel research target: individuals described in terms of their dietary practices and identification. This investigation also contributes to other recent attempts to understand the basis of attitudes towards vegetarians and vegans (e.g., Chin, Fisak, & Sims, 2002; MacInnis & Hodson, 2017; Minson & Monin, 2012; Ruby, 2012; Ruby & Heine, 2011; Ruby et al., 2016) and the associa- tions between right-wing ideologies and higher levels of meat consumption (e.g., Allen & Baines, 2002; Allen, Wilson, Ng, & Dunne, 2000; Dhont & Hodson, 2014). Vegetarianism in western cultures is generally defined as the voluntary practice of abstention from meat, which can be adopted for a variety of (potentially over- lapping) motivations, such as a concern for personal health, animals, or the environment (Beardsworth & Keil, 1992, 1997; Fox & Ward, 2008). A related but dis- tinct concept is veganism, defined by The Vegan Society (n.d.) as “a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose.” While the labels of “vegetarian” and “vegan” can be interpreted as describing specific dietary behaviors, they may also be interpreted as distinct social identities associated with particular values and beliefs. It can be difficult to determine exact proportions of vege- tarians and vegans due to the self-defined nature of the label and the various forms of vegetarianism (Ruby, 2012); however, it has been suggested that that vegetar- ians represent around 3–5% of the population in the United States, and vegans represent 1–2% of the popu- lation (Stahler, 2012). In Aotearoa New Zealand, where the current research is located, one survey found that 1.9% of the population identified as vegetarian, and just 0.2% identified as vegan (Sanitarium, 2009). Veg*ans 1 therefore comprise a minority group in most western societies. However, they are distinct from more common target minority groups in psycho- logical research, given that being veg*an is generally assumed to be a personal choice, and veg*ans are not often considered to be structurally disadvantaged (in- deed, some research suggests that veg*ans may be favored over other minority groups in scenarios such as housing allocations; MacInnis & Hodson, 2017). Veg*anism could even be viewed as a form of positive deviance, due to associations with virtuousness or improved health. For example, Ruby and Heine (2011) found that both omnivore and vegetarian 1 The term “veg*an” is used as shorthand to describe both vegetarians and vegans (e.g., Cole, 2008). European Journal of Social Psychology 49 (2019) 169–178 ª 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 169 EJSP