Information avoidance in moral decisions: an experiment on meat consumption

The study consists of a sequence of online survey and lab experiment. In the survey and the experiment we ask the participants questions about their eating behavior.

The online survey will be filled out by the participants approximately two weeks prior the lab experiment.

The survey includes:
- Demographic questions
- Incentivized questions on the participants' knowledge of meat consumption/production
- Questions on their attitudes and beliefs towards meat consumption/production

The lab experiment lasts less than an hour and includes different parts:
- Incentivized questions on the participants' willingness to pay for information about the meat consumption/production
- Incentivized questions on the participants' knowledge of meat consumption/production [same as in survey]
- Questions on the participants' attitudes and beliefs towards meat consumption/production [same as in survey]
- Depending on the treatment, being served a piece of beef meat and a piece of pork meat [see experimental design below]

[The exact questions can be found in the supplementary documents named "Survey_Questions.pdf", "Knowledge_Questions" and "WTP_Questions".]

2022-02-14

2022-11-30

Willingness to pay for information about meat (WTP)
Knowledge about meat
Attitudes towards meat

- Willingness to pay for information about meat (WTP) is asked for each combination of meat type (beef / pork) with topic (animal welfare / environment / health). Its elicitation is incentivized. It can reflect both information-seeking and information-avoidance.

- Knowledge about meat is measured by a battery of multiple choice questions about meat production/consumption. Correct answers are rewarded. Answering "I don't know" is an option. Some of the questions concern negative consequences of meat consumption.

- Attitudes towards meat are measured by a battery of statements to which participants can agree more or less on a seven-point scale. A subset of these statements justifies meat consumption and hence forms the meat justification score. Another subset of these statements concerns the negative consequences of meat consumption.

[The exact questions can be found in the supplementary documents named "Survey_Questions.pdf", "Knowledge_Questions.pdf" and "WTP_Questions.pdf".]

The study consists of a sequence of online survey and lab experiment. In the survey and the experiment we ask participants questions about their eating behavior. In the lab participants complete a sequence of tasks in which we elicit their attitudes towards animals and meat as well as, in an incentive compatible way, their knowledge about meat and willingness to pay for information regarding meat. Subjects are randomly assigned to two treatments and a control, constituting the exogenous variation in this study.

We use two treatments and a control, to assess if the consumption of meat in the lab influences attitudes, knowledge and willingness to pay for information (WTP) about meat. Subjects are randomly assigned to the two treatments T-Past and T-Future and to the baseline treatment T-Control. Subjects in T-Past are served meat before their WTP, attitudes and knowledge are elicited. Subjects in T-Future anticipate that they will be served meat after their WTP, attitudes and knowledge are elicited. Subjects in T-Control only differ in that they are not served any meat before or after their WTP, attitudes and knowledge are elicited.

Consuming meat may create cognitive dissonance when confronted with its consequences for animal welfare, the environment, and own health. Based on the literature on motivated beliefs (Bénabou and Tirole, 2016) and information avoidance (Golman et al., 2017), we conjecture that eating meat fosters the tendency to avoid and disregard information concerning meat, in particular concerning the negative consequences of meat consumption. Hestermann et al. (2020) formally develop this argument and our hypotheses
follow more or less directly from their model. [see Meat_Hypotheses_and_AnalysisPlan.pdf]

Randomization was done in office by a computer. This generated a random allocation of treatments to experimental sessions.

experimental sessions

No

210 participants.

210 participants.

70 participants per treatment.

Update of Analysis Plan

Hypotheses and Analysis Plan