Psychology of Human-Animal Relations and Animal Consumption

Senior psychology thesis at The University of Puget Sound, please view the full paper here.

This thesis explores humans’ various relationships with and orientations towards non-human animals and how these relate to animal consumption. The relations are divided into three components. The first section explores contemporary attitudes towards eating animals. The second section discusses the cultural influences on American meat consumption and explores the human-animal relationships. The third section unpacks the social-psychological effects that may influence people to eat animals and will discuss how lower value-based beliefs associated with animals have an increased relationship with common forms of discrimination. In conclusion, I will discuss the literature review applications such as aiding animal welfare efforts to improve public health and aid climate change by using psychology to help people understand why humans continue to consume to eat so many animals.