Reddit reviews Motivational Methods for Vegan Advocacy: A Clinical Psychology Perspective
We found 4 Reddit comments about Motivational Methods for Vegan Advocacy: A Clinical Psychology Perspective. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
When it comes to the abolitionist vs. reductionist "debate", there are a massive number of misconceptions on both sides. The thing is both "sides" want the same thing: minimizing harm done to animals. Everyone agrees that a world in which fewer nonhumans were harmed would be better than a one in which more nonhumans were harmed. So then where does the divide come from?
Well, as it turns out, there are multiple stages of behavioral change.
>Stage 1: Pre-contemplation: The individual does not recognize that their behavior needs changing. In the context of animal advocacy, the individual may proudly consume animal "products" and state that they have no intention of ever changing.
>Stage 2 — Contemplation: The person first begins to consider the merits of changing the behavior. They may ask for information about vegan nutrition or recipes, or ask about videos that show the cruelty of the animal agriculture industry.
>Stage 3 — Preparation: The individual perceives a need to change and is getting ready to do so. They may indicate that it's time for them to go vegan and that they are ready to take that final step.
>Stage 4 — Action: The individual is actively working on changing the behavior. Here, the individual is in the early stages of their transition to veganism and is changing their routines.
>Stage 5 — Maintenance: The behavioral change has been made and the individual is working to prevent relapsing to their old ways. This phase is critical because a relapse is a very real concern, though the more one resonates with ethical arguments of veganism related to minimizing our harm to animals, the less likely they are to revert to non-veganism.
Misconception #1: Abolitionism condemns people who take baby steps.
So this is where a lot of the confusion arises. Abolitionism isn't against encouraging baby steps, it's against advocating for baby steps as an end goal. One can still be assertive with the idea that animals "are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way" (i.e., Stage 1) while encouraging those who are making changes (Stage 4), and in fact this sweet spot leads to the best activism possible: it means animal rights advocates never advocate for any kind of animal abuse yet still encourage change along the way to the end goal of veganism.
Misconception #2: Abolitionism is about being morally pure in our advocacy, reductionism is about being effective.
This is a common way to sterotype abolitionists and reductionists, but in fact abolitionism is precisely about valuing what is the most effective form of activism over what what merely feels good. This leads to the next misconception:
Misconception #3: Advocating for less-than-veganism is the most effective way to get people to start making changes in the right direction. (Alternatively, advocating for veganism scares people away from making small changes.)
To some, this seems intuitive; if people are angry at us for advocating such "extreme" ideals, won't that make them more likely to ignore us or even harm more animals? Well, the core of clinical behavioral change science does not agree.
To quote Casey Taft, one of the vegan community's leading experts on this topic:
>Our goal should be to work on motivating people to go vegan; then, once they have made the commitment to do so, we can help them take the steps necessary to get there. That is a true behavioral change strategy.
>Many individual animal advocates and organizations fear promoting veganism as an end goal because they feel that if they're too "pushy" they will lose people altogether. This is likely a leading factor in why a larger cultural shift towards veganism has not occurred. It is in fact possible—and optimal—to clearly state a goal of ending violence towards animals and work with non- vegans in a productive, non-aggressive manner to produce behavioral change.
>Many of us (myself included) took many years to go vegan, and progressed from reducing animal consumption to transitioning to a plant-based diet and then veganism. Some argue that since they took a gradual approach, this is what we should be advocating for others. What they are missing, though, is that if they received clear vegan messaging to end all animal use, they may have gone vegan much sooner and prevented the deaths of many more animals. When we advocate for veganism as an end goal, people will naturally reduce their animal consumption, but will likely do so at a faster pace and will ultimately go vegan. Some will literally go vegan overnight.
>Some animal advocates may also argue that it is simply more effective to ask people to cut down on animal use rather than asking them to go vegan. It is important to keep in mind that there is absolutely no scientific evidence for such claims, [...] and this perspective is not based on any sound theoretical rationale for long-term behavioral change. In fact, such notions disregard a wealth of data showing that it is important to set clear long-term goals that involve a true discrepancy between that goal and current behavior. In other words, it is counterproductive to "settle" for an easy-to-attain goal that the individual is likely to change without our intervention when we could be helping to set more challenging long-term goals to strive for, and that would represent truly internal behavioral change.
>You might still be asking yourself, "That all sounds good, but what if the person I'm communicating with refuses to commit to going vegan?" My response is that I would expect the other person not to make that commitment when you first begin discussing veganism with them in particular. However, their resistance to committing to veganism does not mean that they are a lost cause by any means. Your communication with them may have helped stimulate some thoughts on the issue, and perhaps it will open the door to them having a follow-up discussion or conducting some research on their own. Few people go vegan after any one particular interaction, and we must not place too much pressure on ourselves to make others go vegan after any interaction. Making such a commitment is best thought of as a process. [...] All that we can do is to help move them closer to choosing veganism, but we cannot force them to change, and we should not engage in desperate tactics such as asking them to reduce their animal use rather than promoting veganism because it is less conducive to long-term change.
>We should also be mindful of our larger end goal at the societal level in our advocacy efforts. If our goal is to ultimately convince the world population that we must end all animal use, we should be treating veganism as an issue of social justice and should not encourage others to continue to think of animals as "products" for which we can continue to consume in moderation. We must be careful that our animal advocacy does not perpetuate oppressive views of nonhuman animals, which would ultimately be to their detriment.
Misconception #4: It is permissible for abolitionists to be agressive in their advocacy.
Often times online you will encounter vegans who, in an "argument" against a nonvegan, will degrade themselves to name calling, personal attacks, and bad form. Remember, abolitionism is about what is most effective, not what feels right, and such behaviours are clearly detrimental to the movement.
Such behaviours are often pinned on abilitionism, however, because of a confusion between aggressiveness and assertiveness. The thing is, both aggressiveness and assertiveness may lead to anger, but these are very different types of anger. One leads to increased hatred, while the other leads to true social change, as clearly demonstrated by the civil rights movement and every other social justice movement before and afterwards.
>“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
>Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Further reading and listening:
> Understanding what people listen to is crucial in effective communication.
Why do you assume I've done no research into effective activism? That's why I'm criticizing this video in the first place. It compromises its own message through apologetics which reinforce the perceived validity of the carnist norm instead of communicating an anti-speciesist message. In fact, there's plenty of evidence that door-in-the-face activism is effective at making new vegans, and that people who go vegan for the animals are less likely to renege and go back to eating meat.
Promoting a clear vegan end goal is the best way to bring about both reduction and cessation of animal use and we should be careful not to promote the very thing (speciesism) that is the biggest contributor to our animal use in the first place.
Further, advocating for mere reduction doesn’t change society’s view of non-human animals. Instead it reinforces the belief that animals are here for our use but that we just treasure it more when using and killing them. Reduction may work if we want people to take some minor and inconsequential action. But it doesn’t translate to what we are asking them to do in regard to their views and treatment of non-human animals.
If we truly want to change society’s attitude about other animals, we need to show that we, as animal advocates, don’t endorse using them in any way. We need to educate the public about speciesism and actively work to abolish the speciesist lies that other animals are inferior to humans and are here for our use. In order to create a non-speciesist world, we need to call for a rejection of speciesist views and behaviors.
Finished up 5 non-fiction books this week!
The Moral Economy: Why Good Incentives Are No Substitute for Good Citizens
by Samuel Bowles. 3/5 stars.
The Psychology of Pro-Environmental Communication: Beyond Standard Information Strategies
by Christian Klöckner. 3/5 stars.
How to Create a Vegan World: A Pragmatic Approach by Tobias Leenaert. 5/5 stars.
Motivational Methods for Vegan Advocacy: A Clinical Psychology Perspective
by Casey T. Taft. 4/5 stars.
The Extinction Market: Wildlife Trafficking and How to Counter It
by Vanda Felbab Brown. 3/5 stars.
Still reading/started:
Bird Box by Josh Malerman
Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson
Apologists.
And I agree. You were being assertive, not aggressive. The book Motivational Methods for Vegan Advocacy: A Clinical Psychology Perspective argues that there is no evidence that compromising your message will be helpful in advocating on behalf of animals.