Do Animals’ Minds Matter Less,When Meat Gets Personal? Replications of Piazza and Loughnan (2016) in China

Abstract

Piazza and Loughnan found that the high intelligence information about animals leads to higher moral standing judgment except for self-relevant animals. We replicated the original three studies in China. Study 1 finds that the intelligence information about a fictional animal does not affect moral standing judgment or hunting decisions, inconsistent with the original study. By manipulating the intelligence of animals in one’s culture (pig) versus in other cultures (tapir or trablan), Study 2 consistently finds that intelligence information does not influence moral standing judgment only for pigs. Study 3 reveals that participants have higher moral standing judgment for pigs from another’s perspective but not from one’s own perspective, regardless of the intelligence information. These findings partly replicate the original findings, indicating inconsistency in how people apply mind information in judging the moral standing of animals. When animals become self-relevant, intelligence information no longer increases the moral standing of animals.

Keywords

animals meat-eating moral standing judgment mind attribution motivated cognition

People worldwide enjoy eating meat but do not like animals to be slaughtered (Loughnan et al., 2010). How do people resolve this internal conflict? Previous literature has identified several strategies such as the denial of the mental capacities of animals used as meat (e.g., Bastian & Loughnan, 2017; Bastian et al., 2012; Dowsett et al., 2018; Tian et al., 2016) and moral status (Loughnan et al., 2010). Specifically, the more animals resemble or are connected to humans with respect to various mental capacities, the less people are willing to eat them (Bastian et al., 2012; Bilewicz et al., 2011; Rozin & Fallon, 1987; Ruby & Heine, 2012). Moreover, the perceived moral standing of animals influences people’s reaction to the animal origin of meat (Bastian & Loughnan, 2017). Indeed, judgment of low moral standing justifies the consumption of the meat of animals (Feinberg et al., 2019). Therefore, it is important to explore how people make moral standing judgments about food animals.

An entity has moral standing when it can be morally wronged and therefore deserves moral consideration (Piazza et al., 2014; Sytsma & Machery, 2012). The perceived mind of animals can be critical in guiding people’s moral standing judgment for animals (H. M. Gray et al., 2007; K. Gray & Schein, 2012; K. Gray et al., 2012; Sytsma & Machery, 2012). For instance, beliefs about animals’ minds influence attitudes toward animal use among both adults (Knight et al., 2004) and children (Hawkins & Williams, 2016). When seeing images of various animals, people’s moral attitudes toward animals are related to their evaluations of animals’ mental capacities such as the capacity to feel and think (Possidónio et al., 2019). Evidence has shown that intelligence information about a hypothesized alien animal increases people’s moral standing judgment, especially when the animal is described as harmful (Piazza et al., 2014). Thus, it is important to understand how people use intelligence information in judging animals’ moral standing.

To understand people’s differential treatments of the animals they eat, Piazza and Loughnan (2016) in a recent study has examined the motivated cognition of using intelligence information strategically in the judgments of animals’ moral standing among participants in the UK and United States. In a hypothetical scenario in Study 1, they found that an alien animal (called a “trablan”) from another planet was judged to have higher moral standing when it was depicted as more intelligent. In Study 2, the intelligence of animals as food in one’s culture (pig) or in other cultures (tapirs and trablans) was manipulated as high versus low compared to the intelligence of dogs. Information on intelligence increased the moral standing of animals in other cultures but led to the disregard of the animal’s moral standing when the animal was personally relevant. In Study 3, they examined the effect of intelligence on pigs’ moral standing from one’s own perspective or that of others and found that high intelligence manipulation of pigs increased people’s moral standing judgment, particularly from the perspective of others but not from one’s own perspective. Overall, these findings indicated motivated cognition among people in the judgment of moral standing for animals, given information about the intelligence of these animals. That is, participants attributed more moral standing to animals depicted as highly intelligent when the animals are other-relevant (food animals in other cultures or from the perspective of others). However, when the animal becomes personally relevant, people disregard intelligence information in moral standing judgments to avoid moral dilemmas.

Overview of the Current Research

Given the influence of culture on meat-eating behaviors (Rozin, 1996), it is important to examine the interaction between intelligence and moral standing judgment in different cultures. Therefore, we conducted replications of Piazza and Loughnan’s (2016) three studies in China, where meat consumption and demands are tremendous. In fact, China is the world’s largest market for pork consumption (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations [FAO], 2017). In certain parts of China, meat-eating preferences can be unbelievable for outsiders, such as the highly controversial Dog Meat Festival in Yulin city. Omnivore dietary patterns have recently been discussed and reflected since the outbreak of the coronavirus at the end of 2019 in Wuhan, China. Therefore, exploring the intelligence–moral standing judgment effect in China has important practical implications. Nonetheless, the general importance of replicability in psychology (Brandt et al., 2014; Open Science Collaboration, 2015) and the emphasis on direct replications (Asendorpf et al., 2013) also motivated us to replicate the findings in culturally different samples.

Following the back-translation procedures (Brislin, 1970), we translated all the materials in the original studies from English into Chinese.¹ Based on the effect size (ES) in the original studies (d = 0.65 in Study 1, f = .22 in Studies 2 and 3),² we used G*Power Version 3 (Faul et al., 2007) to calculate the required sample sizes (126 in Study 1, 415 in Study 2, and 359 in Study 3) for a fixed-effects between-subject design with a power of .95.

Study 1 Alien Animals

Method

Participants and Design

We mainly recruited participants in a public university in Shandong Province, China. A total of 134 participants voluntarily took part in an online survey launched by Qualtrics. Two participants who answered only one question and six self-reported vegetarians³ were excluded, leaving 126 participants in the final sample (Mean_age = 29.36, SD _age = 9.37, range 16–51 years old; 47 males and 74 females, 5 missing). As in the original study, we used a single-variable between-subject design and randomly assigned people to the high intelligence (n = 60) or low intelligence condition (n = 66).

Materials and Procedures

Following the procedures in Piazza and Loughnan (2016), we used two versions of one vignette to depict a fictitious species called trablans (translated as “Telai” in Chinese), which was discovered by scientists on a planetary expedition. To manipulate perceived intelligence, trablans were described as highly intelligent or lowly intelligent. The specific manipulation was as follows.

High intelligence: Trablans are very intelligent and curious, showing the ability to solve complex problems, such as using tools. They can learn simple rules and can master several methods of obtaining food.

Low intelligence: Trablans are neither intelligent nor curious, showing no basic abilities to solve problems, such as using tools. They cannot learn simple rules and cannot master any methods of obtaining food.

Participants were randomly and evenly assigned to read one description via Qualtrics and were then asked, “To what extent do trablans seem to be intelligent?” on a 7-point scale from 1 (very unintelligent) to 7 (very intelligent).

Next, all participants read that

After several months, one of the scientists suggested hunting trablans for food. They had sufficient food, but this scientist believed that if they treated trablans as food, their food supply would last longer. Autopsies on trablans that died naturally showed that they were mostly composed of protein and fat and were not poisonous.

We used 5 items (e.g., “To what extent do you think it is morally questionable to eat trablans?”) to measure the moral standing of the animal according to the order of items in the original Study 1 without order randomization on a 7-point scale (1 = not at all, 7 = very much so; Cronbach’s α = .71). Then, participants were asked to make their own decision, as if they were one of the scientists, on whether or not the scientists should start hunting trablans (yes [hunt them] or no [leave them be]).

At the end, we collected information on participants’ demographics and on their dietary practices on the following scale as in the original study: 1 = Meat-lover: I like eating meat very much; 2 = Omnivore: I eat meat and vegetables; 3 = Restricted omnivore: I eat meat, but not very much; 4 = Pescatarian: I only eat fish, but no other meat; 5 = Vegetarian: I do not eat any meat; and 6 = Vegan: I do not eat any meat or animal products.

Results and Discussion

First, the intelligence manipulation was effective, as in the original study. Participants in the high intelligence condition rated trablans as more intelligent (M = 4.75, SD = 1.45) than those in the low intelligence condition did, M = 3.94, SD = 1.48, t(124) = 3.11, p = .002, d = 0.55, 95% confidence interval (CI) = [0.294, 1.327].

We examined the dichotomous measure of moral standing using a χ² test on the frequency of “don’t hunt” responses. In contrast to the original Study 1, we failed to find support for a significant difference, χ²(1) = 3.32, p = .069, ϕ = .164. In the high (vs. low) intelligence condition, 96.6% (vs. 87.7%) of participants voted against hunting trablans. Compared to the voting decision in the original Study 1 (93.5% vs. 60.7%), Chinese participants mostly disagreed with hunting trablans for food in both conditions.

Unlike our expectation and the original Study 1, we did not find significant effect of the intelligence manipulation on moral standing judgment. The high intelligence group (M = 4.59, SD = 1.06) did not differ from the low intelligence group, M = 4.62, SD = 1.17, t(124) = −0.125, p = .901, d = −0.022, 95% CI = [−0.419, 0.369].

Although our intelligence manipulation was effective, we did not find its significant influence on the judgment of an alien animal’s moral standing among Chinese participants, which was inconsistent with the findings of the original study.

Study 2 Effect of Perspectives: Us Versus Them

Study 2 aimed to examine whether perspective (self vs. others) influenced people’s moral standing judgment to animals with different intelligence. Considering the cross-cultural differences in expressions of meat between English and Mandarin, we went beyond the original study and added a new factor in this study. The direct translation of pork into Chinese is meat of pig. In English, different words have evolved to refer animals and their meat: cow versus beef, pig versus pork. This disassociation between animals and their meat can reduce moral concerns in meat-eating behaviors by creating a euphemistic effect in English (Bastian & Loughnan, 2017; Kunst & Hohle, 2016). Unlike in English, the expressions for animals and their meat are inseparable in Mandarin. Therefore, in Study 2, we added a new between-subject factor of language expression (eating animals vs. eating meat) to rule out the alternative impact of language expression in the intelligence–morality link in China. As “eating meat” is commonly used in Mandarin, we did not expect any significant difference between the two types of language expressions.

Method

Participants and Design

We used a 2 (intelligence: high vs. low) × 3 (animals: pigs vs. tapirs vs. trablans) × 2 (eating: animals vs. meat of animals) between-subject design. We recruited 423 participants mainly in a public university in Shandong Province, China. The participants, who voluntarily participated in an online survey, were randomly and equally distributed to 1 of the 12 conditions enabled by Qualtrics settings. Seventeen participants were excluded, including 13 whose response in summarizing the vignette was completely unrelated to the content of the vignette, indicating carelessness of answering the survey, and 4 who did not answer any questions. Another five self-reported vegetarians were excluded. The final sample included 401 participants (Mean_age = 20.96, SD _age = 5.97, range 16–51 years old; 91 males and 302 females, 8 missing).

Materials and Procedures

Translated from the original study, we depicted the intelligence of three animals (pigs, tapirs, and trablans) as either higher or lower than that of dogs with six vignettes. Participants read one of the six vignettes and then were asked to summarize what they had read in a few sentences and to judge to what extent the animal described in the vignette was intelligent from 1 (very unintelligent) to 7 (very intelligent).

On the next page, participants read two short paragraphs that described one of the three animals. The first paragraph described that the animal was eaten somewhere (people eat pigs in China vs. people eat tapirs in Southeast Asia⁴ and South America vs. settlers on a distant planet eat trablans). All participants learned that the animal was originally hunted in the wild but is increasingly farmed for human consumption. Then, two questions were presented in sequence measuring how bad and how guilty participants would feel about eating the animal on a 0–100 scale (0 = not at all bad [guilty], 100 = extremely bad [guilty]).

Next, participants read about the abusive treatment of the animal in their society (pigs), in Southeast Asia/South America, or the distant planet (e.g., pigs are slaughtered for obtaining their meat. Pigs are kept alone in cramped pens with hardly enough space to turn around throughout their lives. From time to time, farmers on industrial farms also abuse them, such as kicking them, castrating them, and cutting off their tails). This information was the same for all conditions. Then, two questions were presented in sequence measuring how bad and how guilty participants would feel about the miserable situation of the animal on a 0–100 scale (0 = not at all bad [guilty], 100 = extremely bad [guilty]). The final question measured how wrong it was to eat the animal on a 0–100 scale (0 = completely OK to eat, 100 = extremely wrong to eat). The 5 items were averaged into a single moral standing index (Cronbach’s α = .95), as in the original study. Finally, demographic information and data on dietary practices were collected.

Results and Discussion

We conducted a 2 × 3 analysis of variance (ANOVA) on the rating of intelligence with intelligence and animal targets as the independent variables and found that participants in the high intelligence condition rated the animals as more intelligent than those in the low intelligence condition did F(1, 395) = 527.42, p < .001, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .572. When each animal’s intelligence was compared, the animals were evaluated as more intelligent in the high intelligence condition than in the low intelligence condition, indicating that the intelligence manipulation was effective for all three animal targets (see Table 1 for details).

Table 1.

Mean and Standard Deviation of Intelligence Evaluation Across Conditions.

Target	High Intelligence			Low Intelligence			Independent Sample t Test	p	95% CI	d
Target	n	M	SD	n	M	SD	Independent Sample t Test	p	95% CI	d
Pigs	71	5.56 _a	1.17	68	3.26 _b	1.28	t(137) = 11.08	<.001	[1.89, 2.71]	1.88
Tapirs	67	6.03 _c	0.85	64	3.27 _b	1.12	t(129) = 15.98	<.001	[2.42, 3.11]	2.79
Trablans	63	5.97 _c	0.7	68	3.41 _b	1.35	t(129) = 13.45	<.001	[2.18, 2.93]	2.35

Note. The different subscripts (i.e., a, b, and c) signified significant differences between conditions and the 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were the CIs of the mean differences.

We conducted a 2 (intelligence: high vs. low) × 3 (animals: pigs vs. tapirs vs. trablans) × 2 (eating: animals vs. meat of animals) ANOVA on the moral standing index. Consistent with the original study, the main effects of both intelligence, F(1, 380) = 21.01, p < .001, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .052, and animal targets, F(2, 380) = 58.13, p < .001, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .234, were significant, which was qualified by a significant interaction effect, F(2, 380) = 3.07, p = .048, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .016. No other significant results were revealed, which was reported in an Online Supplemental Document. A simple effect analysis revealed that participants in the high intelligence condition attributed more moral standing to tapirs, F(1, 388) = 10.96, p = .001, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .027, and trablans, F(1, 388) = 9.57, p = .002, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .024, than did those in the low intelligence condition. Consistent with the original study, the moral standing judgment of pigs was not different between the high versus low intelligence condition, F(1, 388) = .25, p = .619, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .003 (see Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Means and standard errors of moral standing judgment by intelligence and animal targets in Study 2.

This pattern was consistent with the findings in Piazza and Loughnan (2016). Chinese participants did not attribute high moral standing to pigs, which is a common food in the participants’ culture, regardless of the intelligence information. In contrast, when judging the moral standing of animals (tapirs and trablans) as food in other cultures, enhancing the animals’ intelligence increased Chinese participants’ moral standing judgment for these two animals.

Study 3 Who’s Eating the Animal? Self Versus Other

Method

The sample size, ES, and data analyses in Study 3 were preregistered via the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/s9724).

Participants and Design

We used a 2 (intelligence: high vs. low) × 2 (perspective: self vs. other) between-subject design. We launched the online survey among 586 participants mainly recruited in three universities in China. Participants answered the survey voluntarily via Qualtrics. As in the original study, we were interested only in the responses of participants who personally ate pork or who correctly recalled that a protagonist named Han Wang eats pork. We removed 28 participants who did not match this criterion and two participants who did not answer this item from the analysis. Another two self-reported vegetarians were excluded. In addition, 42 participants whose summary of the vignette they read was completely unrelated to the vignette and 166 participants who did not respond to any questions were removed. The final sample included 346 participants (Mean_age = 21.20, SD _age = 5.27, range 16–55 years old; 87 males and 249 females, 10 missing).

Materials and Procedures

Translated from the original study, we depicted the intelligence of pigs as either higher or lower than that of dogs from two perspectives. The intelligence manipulation of pigs was similar to that in Study 2. The two perspectives referred to participants themselves or to another person who learned about the intelligence information about pigs. In the other-perspective condition, the protagonist was a Chinese person named “Han Wang” instead of the name “John” in the original study.

Participants were evenly distributed to randomly read one of the four vignettes and were then asked to summarize what they had read in a few sentences and to judge to what extent pig was intelligent from 1 (very unintelligent) to 7 (very intelligent). The next question on a separate page was to detect whether participants matched our criterion (eating pork personally) and had read the survey carefully by asking whether they themselves or Han Wang eat pigs (e.g., pork tenderloin, streaky pork, pork ribs, and the meat of pigs’ head). Then, they completed the following tasks successively on separate pages. First, two questions measured how bad and guilty they themselves or Han Wang would feel about eating pigs on a 0–100 scale (0 = not at all bad [guilty], 100 = extremely bad [guilty]). Second, similar to Study 2, a paragraph depicting the miserable living condition of pigs was shown to participants, and participants then answered two questions measuring how bad and guilty they or Han Wang would feel about the miserable situation of pigs on a 0–100 scale (0 = not at all bad [guilty], 100 = extremely bad [guilty]) and one question measuring how wrong they or Han Wang thought it was to eat pigs on a 0–100 scale (0 = not wrong at all, 100 = extremely wrong). The responses to the five questions were averaged into a single moral standing index (Cronbach’s α = .891). Finally, demographic information and data on dietary practices were collected.

Results and Discussion

The intelligence manipulation was effective that pigs were evaluated as more intelligent in the high intelligence condition (M _high = 5.41, SD _high = 1.03) than in the low intelligence condition, M _low = 4.08, SD _low = 1.29, t(344) = 10.61, p < .001, d = 1.14, 95% CI = [1.08, 1.58].

We conducted a 2 (intelligence: high vs. low) × 2 (perspective: self vs. other) ANOVA on the moral standing index (high-self condition: n = 88; high-other condition: n = 85; low-self condition: n = 87; low-other condition: n = 79; 7 missing). Although the pattern of our findings was consistent with that in the original study, as shown in Figure 2, we did not find a significant effect of intelligence (p = .14) or an interaction effect (p = .18). Meanwhile, the originally insignificant main effect of perspective was significant and revealed that participants in the other-perspective condition (M = 31.85, SD = 21.60) attributed more moral standing to pigs than did those in the self-perspective condition, M = 22.74, SD = 18.73, F(1, 335) = 16.93, p < .001, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .048. This finding was consistent with those of the previous literature that people made stricter moral judgments when taking a third-person perspective compared to a first-person perspective (e.g., Agerström et al., 2013; Libby et al., 2009).

Figure 2.

Means and standard errors of moral standing judgment by intelligence and perspective in Study 3.

General Discussion

We followed Piazza and Loughnan’s (2016) manipulation of animal intelligence in larger samples in China and partly replicated their findings (see Table 2 for a summary). Overall, we found that (1) the intelligence information about an alien animal (trablans in Study 1) or a commonly eaten animal (pigs in Studies 2 and 3) did not affect Chinese participants’ moral standing judgment and (2) the intelligence information about food animals (tapirs and trablans in Study 2) in other cultures affected Chinese participants’ moral standing judgment. Following the suggestions from LeBel et al. (2019) on conducting a replication study, we considered three statistical aspects of the results to summarize our replication findings: (1) whether a signal was detected (i.e., whether the 95% CI of the ES excludes 0), (2) the consistency of the ES estimate of the replication with that observed in the original study (i.e., whether the CI of the ES of the replication includes the original ES point estimate), and (3) the precision of the ES estimate of the replication (i.e., the width of its CI relative to the CI in the original study). On the intelligence manipulation, the results indicated that the signal was detected, but the replication ES was smaller than that in the original study; in other words, the replication’s CI excluded the original ES point estimates. On the hunting decision in Study 1, no signal was detected. In the moral standing judgment, a signal was detected in Study 2 but not in Studies 1 and 3. In summary, we followed Piazza and Loughnan’s (2016) manipulation of animal intelligence in much larger samples in China and partly replicated their findings.

Table 2.

Comparison Between Our Replication Studies and the Original Studies.

Studies	Experimental Design	Sample Size (Current vs. Original Studies)	Dependent Measures	Effect Size	Effect Size of Original Studies	Null Hypothesis Statistical Testing Summary	Replication Summary
Study 1	One variable (intelligence: high vs. low) between-subject design Same with the original study	126 vs. 59	Intelligence manipulation	0.072 [0.02, 0.15]	0.702	Supported	Signal—inconsistent, smaller
			Moral standing judgment	−0.022 [−0.37, 0.33]	0.84 [0.30, 1.37]	Not supported	No signal—inconsistent
			Hunting decision	0.33 [−0.03, 0.69]	0.86 [0.31, 1.42]	Not supported	No signal—inconsistent
Study 2	2 (intelligence: high vs. low) × 3 (animals: pigs vs. tapirs vs. trablans) × 2 (eating: animals vs. meat of animals) between-subject design Similar with the original study but adding a variable of “eating”	401 vs. 143	Intelligence manipulation
			Pigs	0.473 [0.37, .055]	0.59	Supported	Signal—inconsistent, smaller
			Tapirs	0.664 [0.59, 0.72]	0.779	Supported	Signal—inconsistent, smaller
			Trablans	0.584 [0.49, 0.65]	0.733	Supported	Signal—inconsistent, smaller
			Moral standing judgment
			Intelligence	0.052 [0.02, 0.09]	0.116 [0.04, 0.20]	Supported	Signal—inconsistent, smaller
			Animal targets	0.234 [0.17, 0.29]	0.082 [0.02, 0.16]	Supported	Signal—consistent
			Interaction effect	0.016 [0.0001, 0.04]	0.017 [0, 0.06]	Not supported	Signal—consistent
			Pigs	0.0006 [0, 0.01]	0.01	Not supported	No signal—consistent
			Tapirs	0.028 [0.01, 0.06]	0.12	Not supported	Signal—inconsistent, smaller
			Trablans	0.024 [0.01, 0.05]	0.23	Not supported	Signal—inconsistent, smaller
Study 3	2 (intelligence: high vs. low) × 2 (perspective: self vs. other) between-subject designSame with the original study	346 vs. 117	Intelligence manipulation	1.14 [0.91, 1.37]	2.08 [1.63, 2.53]	Supported	Signal—inconsistent, smaller
			Moral standing judgment
			Intelligence	0.006 [0, 0.03]	0.156 [0.07, 0.26]	Not supported	No signal—inconsistent
			Perspective	0.048 [0.02, 0.09]	0.018 [0, 0.08]	Not supported	Signal—consistent
			Interaction effect	0.005 [0, 0.03]	0.048 [0.004, 0.13]	Not supported	No signal—inconsistent

Note. Consistent with the original studies, the effect sizes of moral standing judgment and hunting decision in Study 1 and intelligence manipulation in Study 3 were Cohen’s d with a 95% confidence interval (CI). All other effect sizes were $η_{p}^{2}$ with a 90% CI. The lack of CIs in the effect sizes of the original studies was due to limited information in the original studies for calculation. The effect sizes of the animal targets in the interaction effect in the original Study 2 were $η_{p}^{2}$ with all participants, as indicated in Note 5 in the original research (Piazza & Loughnan, 2016).

Why Was the Original Study 2 Successfully Replicated?

A growing body of literature demonstrates that meat-eating behaviors lead people to dementalize the animals they eat (e.g., Bastian & Loughnan, 2017; Bastian et al., 2012; Dowsett et al., 2018; Tian et al., 2016). The categorization of animals as food rather than as living beings reduced perceptions of animals’ moral standing (Bratanova et al., 2011). The distinction between food and living beings may reflect different membership of animals as a species. People can judge animals’ moral standing based solely on their species membership (Caviola et al., 2019). For Chinese participants in our studies, pigs were commonly treated as food animals in China, whereas tapirs/trablans were described as food animals in other cultures. Consistent with the original studies (Piazza & Loughnan, 2016), participants indeed did not rely on information about the animals’ intelligence in moral standing judgment when the animals were relevant to them. In contrast, when the animals were not relevant to participants, their intelligence information was used to guide participants’ moral standing judgment.

Why Did Studies 1 and 3 Fail to Replicate?

Although the intelligence manipulation was effective in both Studies 1 and 3, our findings revealed some inconsistencies with the original studies. First, we did not find a significant effect of intelligence information on the moral standing judgment for a fictitious animal (trablans) in Study 1 from one’s own perspective. Such a finding may reflect that as alien animals, the intelligence information about trablans was not powerful enough to influence Chinese participants’ moral standing judgment. Chinese participants seemed to be uncertain in their moral standing judgment for this alien animal, indicating by the mean scores in both conditions were approximately 4, which reflected a lack of certainty. However, when adopting another manipulation of intelligence by making a comparison between trablans and dogs in Study 2 using a wider range of moral judgment scale (a 100-point scale vs. a 7-point scale in Study 1), participants became more certain regarding the moral standing judgment for trablans. Therefore, the manipulation of intelligence information about a hypothetical animal can use a common animal as a reference group. Future research could also further replicate these studies using a wider rating scale on moral standing judgment, as in Study 2.

Second, unlike the original Study 3, we did not find a main effect of intelligence or the interaction effect of intelligence and perspective on the moral standing judgment of pigs. One possible explanation could be that pork consumption in China is the highest worldwide, with increases in the past decades (FAO, 2017). In comparison, pork consumption each year did not change much in the UK, where the original Study 3 was conducted (FAO, 2017). When pigs’ moral standing was judged, the high self-relevance of pigs to Chinese participants could trump the effect of intelligence information. In fact, the nonsignificant result of the main effect of intelligence in Study 3 was internally consistent with the pattern in Study 2. The intelligence information about pigs was not referred to when Chinese participants made moral standing judgments for pigs. Interestingly, we found a main effect of perspective, indicating that others’ perspective, rather than intelligence information, increased moral standing judgment for pigs. This new finding is consistent with the key argument in the original research; that is, other-relevance influences the judgment of the moral standing of animals as food.

Conclusion

In this replication of Piazza and Loughnan (2016) in China, we consistently find that intelligence information about animals increases Chinese participants’ judgment of the moral standing of animals as food in other cultures but not in their own culture or from their own perspective. Meanwhile, our findings reveal a new pattern such that the adoption of others’ perspective increases individuals’ moral standing judgment of animals. For animals heavily consumed in one’s culture, such as pigs in China, intelligence information no longer increases the moral concern of these animals.

Supplemental Material

Supplmentary_materials - Do Animals’ Minds Matter Less, When Meat Gets Personal? Replications of Piazza and Loughnan (2016) in China

Supplmentary_materials for Do Animals’ Minds Matter Less, When Meat Gets Personal? Replications of Piazza and Loughnan (2016) in China by Qirui Tian, Xiao-xiao Liu, Jiayu Zhou and Tianwen Sun in Social Psychological and Personality Science

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) declared receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Grant number FJ2018MGCA032, received from Fujian Provincial Social Science Association, China.

ORCID iD

Xiao-xiao Liu

Supplemental Material

The supplemental material is available in the online version of the article.

Notes

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