麻豆淫院

The values of vegetarians diverge sharply from those of meat-eaters, revealing a profile less about kindness and more about individuality, according to psychologist John B. Nezlek at SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities and the College of William & Mary.

Contrary to some conventional narratives, vegetarians consistently rate power, stimulation, and achievement as more central to their personal values than their omnivorous peers.

Growing interest in plant-based eating has been shaping conversations around not just diet, but identity, and ethics as well.

As more people reduce or eliminate meat, researchers have turned to psychological frameworks to understand the values that accompany these shifts. Much of that work has focused on narrow domains such as health, animal welfare, ecological concerns, and certain personality traits, leaving the broader motivational architecture unexplored.

Psychological studies often lean on personality indicators like Openness or Agreeableness to characterize vegetarians, yet such traits only approximate the deeper currents that shape decision-making. Beneath those traits lie basic human values, abstract ideals that influence choices across cultures and situations.

Schwartz's theory of human values has become an influential framework for studying values. Core principles like tradition, self-direction, and universalism are grouped into ten categories that predict real-world behavior. Widely used across disciplines, this framework has rarely been applied to diet-based groups.

In the study, "Rethinking vegetarianism: Differences between vegetarians and non-vegetarians in the endorsement of basic human values," in PLOS ONE, Nezlek designed a cross-cultural comparison, grounded in Schwartz's model of human values, to determine whether fundamental values differ systematically between people who identify as vegetarians and those who do not.

Three independent samples formed the basis of the analysis: one from the United States and two from Poland. Nezlek surveyed 1,054 adults in the US, 636 in the first Polish cohort, and 2,102 in the second.

Across all samples, 3,792 adults participated, 883 classified as vegetarians and 2,909 non-vegetarians. To ensure adequate statistical power, vegetarians were oversampled in the US and the first Polish study.

In each dataset, participants self-identified their dietary habits and gender before completing value assessments. Women made up the majority in all samples, and the average participant age ranged from the late 30s to early 50s. Participants were drawn from online survey panels, and only those selecting binary gender categories were included in the analysis.

Participants completed standardized measures of human values and dietary identification. Values were assessed using Schwartz's Portrait Value Questionnaire鈥攅ither the 57-item revised version in the US or the 21-item form in Poland. Each item asked participants to rate how much a description of a fictional person was like themselves, using a six-point scale. To minimize response bias, scores were centered on each participant's overall average.

Ten value domains formed the analytical core: Universalism, Benevolence, Conformity, Tradition, Security, Self-direction, Stimulation, Hedonism, Achievement, and Power. Dietary status was self-reported using predefined categories.

Those identifying as vegan, plant-based, lacto-vegetarian, or lacto-ovo-vegetarian were classified as vegetarians. All others were designated non-vegetarians, although one Polish sample excluded pescatarians and semi-vegetarians.

Nezlek analyzed value scores using two-way ANOVAs to assess the effects of diet and gender. To account for multiple comparisons, p-values were adjusted using the Benjamini鈥揌ochberg procedure. All participants provided electronic informed consent, and the research was approved by ethics committees at SWPS University in Pozna艅.

Vegetarians consistently rated Benevolence, Security, and Conformity values as less important than non-vegetarians across all three samples.

Stimulation, Achievement, and Power values were rated as more important by vegetarians, reflecting a repeated pattern of difference. Traditional values were also lower among vegetarians, though this difference reached statistical significance only in the Polish cohorts. Benevolence was in positive territory for vegetarians, just relatively lower than omnivores.

In the United States, vegetarians placed greater importance on Universalism than non-vegetarians did. In Poland, no significant differences appeared. Self-direction values diverged by country: more important for non-vegetarians in the US, yet more important for vegetarians in Poland, where the difference reached statistical significance in one sample.

Environmental values, a subcomponent of Universalism, followed the same pattern鈥攕ignificant in the US, not in Poland. No consistent gender-related differences emerged, and interactions between diet and gender were rare. All reported effects remained statistically robust after controlling for multiple comparisons using the Benjamini鈥揌ochberg procedure.

Nezlek concludes that vegetarianism may reflect a pattern of independence and nonconformity rather than a heightened concern for social harmony. Across cultures, vegetarians expressed lower regard for values linked to social order and tradition, such as Conformity, Security, and Benevolence.

At the same time, they rated values tied to personal agency, including Stimulation, Achievement, and Power, as more important. Nezlek interprets this combination as evidence that vegetarianism may function less as a moral imperative and more as a form of self-definition through resistance to dominant norms.

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