Biases
50 psychological mechanisms that make these arguments convincing, even when they do not hold up.
Cognitive dissonance (the meat paradox)
Loving animals and eating them creates tension, resolved by denying minds to the animals eaten (Bastian et al., 2012)
Motivated reasoning
Looking for reasons for the conclusion you already want
Confirmation bias
Accepting only what confirms a prior belief
Status quo bias
Preferring the current state because it is current
System justification
Legitimizing the existing order to reduce discomfort
Functional categorization
"Food" animals are granted less mind than "pet" animals
Ingroup bias
Valuing "our own" and devaluing outsiders
The 4Ns rationalization
Justifying eating animals by saying it is natural, normal, necessary and nice (Piazza and colleagues, 2015).
Hypocrisy hunting
Looking for an inconsistency in whoever defends an idea so as not to examine the idea.
Mind denial
Attributing less mind and less capacity to suffer to the animals we eat.
Do-gooder derogation
Belittling people who act for moral reasons, because their conduct feels like an accusation.
Bandwagon effect and social conformity
Adopting a habit or an idea because many people around you do.
Illusory truth and mere exposure effects
What you hear often seems true, and what is familiar seems better.
Omission bias and perpetrator bias
Judging as less serious the harm we don't cause with our own hands, or that results from not acting.
Teleological bias and agency detection
Seeing purpose and intention in nature: animals would "exist for" something.
Collapse of compassion
The more victims, the less we feel for each; one identifiable victim moves us more than millions.
Loss aversion and the endowment effect
Losing what you have weighs more than gaining something equivalent.
Sunk cost and effort justification
Carrying on because you've invested a lot, not because it's worth it.
Overconfidence (Dunning-Kruger)
People who know little about a topic tend to overestimate what they know.
Naive realism and the bias blind spot
Thinking we see the world as it is and only others are biased.
Anthropocentric thinking
Using humans as the measure of everything, including of what counts as feeling.
Availability bias
Judging by the easiest memory, like an acquaintance's case, rather than by the data.
Halo effect
One good quality, like "local" or "organic", colors the judgment of everything else.
Psychological essentialism
Believing each kind of being has a fixed essence that defines its place.
Masculinity and meat
Associating eating meat with manliness, which makes change feel like a threat to identity.
Dissociation and euphemism
Separating the animal from the food, including through the words we use.
Salience bias
Giving weight to what grabs attention, like the distance traveled, rather than to what matters most.
Social dominance orientation
Preferring hierarchies between groups, including between species.