Social Influence and Meat-Eating Behaviour

Jiaqi Ge, Andrea Scalco and Tony Craig
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Jiaqi Ge: School of Geography, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
Andrea Scalco: Independent Researcher, 22100 Como, Italy
Tony Craig: Social, Economic and Geographical Sciences Department, The James Hutton Institute, Aberdeen AB15 8QH, UK

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 13, 1-23

Abstract: In recent years, interest in non-meat diets has been growing at an exponential rate in many countries. There is a wide consensus now that increased meat consumption is linked to higher health risks and environmental impact. Yet humans are social animals. Even the very personal decision of whether to eat meat or not is influenced by others around them. Using data from the British Social Attitude Survey, we develop an agent-based model to study the effect of social influence on the spread of meat-eating behaviour in the British population. We find that social influence is crucial in determining the spread of different meat-eating behaviours. According to the model, in order to bring about large-scale changes in meat-eating behaviours at the national level, people need to (1) have a strong openness to influences from others who have different meat-eating behaviour and (2) have a weak tendency to reinforce their current meat-eating behaviour after observing others in their own social group sharing the same behaviour.

Keywords: meat-eating behaviour; vegetarianism; social influence; social interaction; agent-based modelling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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