| Abstract |
| Do animals have a mind? Our understanding about whether animals have minds depends on our relationship with animals, as we cannot determine animals' actual minds. These two studies presented here thus examined the meat paradox, that is, an inconsistency between love for animals and the act of enjoying eating meat in the context of mind perception. Study 1 examined whether mind perceptions toward various animals are classified on the basis of experience-related capacities, such as feeling pain, and agency-related capacities, such as having self-control. In Study 2, mind perceptions toward cows and sexually objectified women were classified on the basis of food condition and non-food condition. In the food condition (experimental condition), cows were portrayed as products for meat consumption, whereas in the control condition, they were described as animals living on a farm, eating grass. The results of Study 2 demonstrated revealed that mind perception was positively associated with how morally incorrect it was to eat animals. Study 2 thus demonstrated that the scores of mind perception toward cows and sexually objectified women in the experimental condition were significantly lower than those in the control condition. These reduced mind attribution in the experimental condition implied that people may be motivated to reduce cognitive dissonance between their attitudes toward animals, such as loving them, and their behaviors, such as, eating meat. In addition, these results suggest that objectification toward animals may impact the objectification and mind perception toward human beings as well. These findings highlight the role of dissonance reduction in the meat paradox and objectification theory so as to understand basic psychological processes involved while making moral choices in everyday life. |
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| Key Words |
| 마음지각, 고기를 먹는 행동, 인지부조화, 객체화, 도덕성, Mind Perception, Eating Meat, Cognitive Dissonance Theory, Objectification, Morality |
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