Researchers found that the way meat production is described can influence the meat-eating experience, according to a new study published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE.
For the study, lead author Lisa Feldman Barrett, a professor of psychology at Northeastern University, paired identical meat samples with different descriptions and then reported on participants’ eating experiences, according to a statement from Northeastern University. “They found that meat samples paired with descriptions of animals raised on factory farms looked, smelled, and tasted less pleasant to study participants than meat samples paired with descriptions of animals raised on humane farms. Participants’ beliefs also influenced their perceived flavor of the meat and the amount of meat they consumed, suggesting that beliefs can actually influence eating behavior,” the statement said.
The findings align with an emerging body of research that shows that beliefs can influence how consumers evaluate food, Northeastern said. “We show that what you feel very directly influences not only how you interpret what you see but also very literally what you see,” said Barrett, a pioneer in the psychology of emotion and the director of Northeastern’s Interdisciplinary Affective Science Laboratory. “We call this ‘affective realism’–the tendency of your feelings to influence the actual content of your perceptual experience.”
For one experiment, study participants were asked to consume two identical samples of organic beef jerky, each labeled to describe a different kind of farm on which cows were raised. The “humane farm” label described a farm where animals lived freely, grazing outdoors. The “factory farm” label described a farm where animals were more like prisoners, confined to indoor pens.
Northeastern said researchers found that study participants ranked the factory-farmed meat sample as less pleasant measured by appearance, smell, taste, and overall enjoyment. Participants were willing to pay 22 percent less for a six-ounce package of the factory farmed jerky compared to the humanely farmed jerky and consumed 8 percent less as well, showing, the researchers wrote, “that implicit consumption behavior was also influenced by beliefs.”