Why photos of baby animals put women off meat

Seeing a cute baby animal puts women off eating meat, a study found.

Women are more responsive to lambs, piglets, calves or baby kangaroos than men and the reaction is linked to their traditional role as care-givers, research by two British universities reveals.

Researchers showed male and female participants pairs of pictures showing a cooked meat dish and an animal. They included images of animals such as a calf and bull and a baby and adult kangaroo. They were told the cooked food came from the animal depicted.

A follow-up study asked them to rate their appetite for meat when presented with an image of either a calf, cow or no animal.

Psychologist Dr Jared Piazza at Lancaster University said: ‘Both men and women find baby farmed animals to be cute and vulnerable, and experience feelings of tenderness and warmth towards them.’ But he added: ‘Feeling tenderness towards a baby animal appears to be an oppositional force on appetite for meat for many people, especially women.

‘Our findings may reflect women’s greater emotional attunement towards babies and, by extension, their tendency to empathise more with baby animals.

‘Also, meat is associated with masculinity and images of tough men who consume meat for muscle-building protein, along with prehistoric ideas of the male as hunter. Women have a much more ambivalent attitude towards meat and their identity is not bound up with it in the same way.’

The findings suggest animal rights groups should use publicity images of cute baby animals when aiming at women.

The study by Dr Piazza and Dr neil McLatchie and Cecilie Olesen of University College London is published in the scientific journal Anthrozoos.