In US-based study, researchers discovered that people are motivated to be vegetarian for different reasons -- the most common in western cultures being health, the environment, and animal rights.

University of California, Davis, researchers in the Department of Psychology surveyed 8,000 people of various ages and ethnicities, in two languages, in both the United States and Holland, to help determine why nonvegetarians decide to become vegetarian.

The results showed that the main motivation for nonvegetarians to consider being vegetarian is their health, with environmental and animal rights motives being less common. However, people who are most committed to a vegetarian diet were most motivated by the environment or animal rights.

"The most common reason people say they would consider being vegetarian has to do with health ... However, people-driven primarily by health motives may be least likely to respond to vegetarian advocacy, in general," said Christopher J. Hopwood, professor of psychology and co-author of the paper. This creates a challenge for advocacy movements, he said: what motive should they target?

One possible solution would be to target different motives in different groups of people. The researchers found that health motives were associated with conventionality and masculinity, whereas people who cite environmental or animal rights motives tend to be curious, open to experience, likely to volunteer and interested in the arts. Based on these results, advocacy groups could target certain kinds of people -- maybe advertise health benefits at a gym or church service, but environmental or animal rights perspectives at a museum or concert, Hopwood said.