Do Vegetarians Care More About Animals Than People?

New study finds meat eaters share a surprising trait.

A new study suggests vegetarians may be “less benevolent” than meat eaters. This may seem counterintuitive, given that among the chief motivations for giving up meat are concern for animal welfare and the environment. The study reinforces prior assessments that eating a plant-based diet does not make people less empathetic toward others but rather those who lack benevolent traits are more drawn to vegetarianism.

Studying Benevolence

John Nezlek, a psychology professor, drew on three previous studies from the United States and Poland to examine how core human values differ between vegetarians and non-vegetarians. He concluded that “vegetarians hold values consistent with being members of a social minority who are willing to stand by their principles.” As reported by Newsweek, the study’s key findings were that vegetarians “rated benevolence (concern for those close to you) significantly lower than meat eaters did,” were less concerned about “security (valuing safety and harmony) and conformity (following social norms),” but rated “values like stimulation (seeking excitement), achievement (personal success), and power (control over resources) higher than meat eaters.”

Nezlek concluded:

“The present results suggest that although vegetarians may be more sensitive to the pain and suffering of animals and may be more aware of threats to the environment than non-vegetarians, this sensitivity and awareness do not reflect basic human value of benevolence.”

The motivations for vegetarian diets in Western cultures differ significantly from those in other areas of the world. Many non-Westerners avoid meat for religious reasons or lack of means; for Americans, the practice is primarily driven by perceived health benefits or for moral causes such as reversing climate change or saving animals from slaughter.

Unhappy Vegetarians

There are reportedly some 1.5 billion vegetarians globally, about 75% of whom are not vegetarian by choice and would eat meat if they could afford it. An estimated one-quarter of India’s population is vegetarian: 79% of India’s population is Hindu (followers traditionally revere cows and avoid beef), and 14% is Muslim (followers of Islam traditionally avoid pork). The percentage of Americans eschewing meat diets hovers closer to 6% and are statistically favored by young, thin white women.

These motivations may explain the relative shortfall of benevolence toward fellow humans found in vegetarians in the recent study. A 2014 survey of 11,000 US adults by the Human Research Council found that the most common reasons that Americans abandon meat diets included health (69%), animal protection (68%), negative feelings about meat and animal products (63%), environmental concern (59%), and social justice (29%). Social and moral beliefs about climate alarmism and animal rights align with misanthropic notions that human beings are innately evil due to their polluting and animal-dining behaviors. This may explain why those who worship nature and elevate animals to equal status with humans may adopt a less benevolent view of their fellow humans.

This suspicion was reinforced by a 1993 study by Prof. Harold A. Herzog Jr. titled “‘The Movement Is My Life’: The Psychology of Animal Rights Activism,” which found that the main themes of animal rights activism “usually entailed major changes in lifestyle” and parallel religious conversion. Herzog found that “[t]he most pronounced area of change for the activists was diet,” disrupting normal family and social bonds. Herzog observed that this caused a “sense of guilt when their behavior did not match their ideals. Many were laboring under a heavy moral burden that other people do not bear.”

Moral Superiority?

Herzog also discerned that for many animal rights activists, the moral cause that generally prompted their dietary changes also influenced their view of others, including for some a “Sense of Moral Superiority”:

“It became clear during the interviews that many of the activists were, as Thoreau would put it, marching to the beat of a different drummer …

“[T]here are several parallels between involvement in the movement and religious conversion … First, most activists experienced a change in fundamental beliefs, shifting to a worldview which several of the participants referred to as a ‘new paradigm.’ Second, dramatic lifestyle changes accompanied this shift in thinking. Third, there was an evangelical component to the involvement of almost all of the activists — a mission to spread their message. Fourth, many activists seemed to experience a sense of sin. For most, this was not the result of personal guilt … Rather, they seemed to experience a kind of collective guilt that stemmed from the transgressions of nature caused by the ascendancy of 20th-century technology. They spoke of the evils of intensive agricultural practices, diseases that result from unhealthy (i.e., animal fat) diets and lifestyles, and of the hubris of modem science. Finally, as with religious fundamentalists, many of the activists were quite convinced that their perspective was correct and their cause just. They had discovered Truth.”

That Western vegetarians are less benevolent reflects the negative views toward neighbors and family common to the climate, social justice, and animal rights movements. Numerous studies parallel this finding, revealing that white, liberal women in the United States are more likely to suffer from mental health issues. A 2024 study in the Journal of Affective Disorders indicated it is not that being a vegetarian that causes mental health problems, but the other way around, finding “psychological distress in early adulthood to be a predictor of vegetarianism at age 30, suggesting a complex interplay between early mental health and dietary choices.”

The virtue-signaling tirades of a generation of Greta Thunbergs may similarly be attributable to mental health struggles that lead far-left activists to proclaim benevolent motives that conceal contemptuous, intolerant beliefs about their fellow citizens. While the touted physical health benefits claimed by vegetarians attract critical scrutiny, so, too, an underlying conflict and hostility that fuel antipathy toward friends (and, ultimately, self) may explain why so many who set out on the plant-diet pathway abandon the pursuit: 34% of former vegans and vegetarians reportedly quit before three months and 53% before one year.

Most Americans won’t be quitting their bacon-topped hamburgers or buffalo chicken wings any time soon. That may be healthiest for all, at least mentally.