To reduce heat stress from traffic, the organization recommends:
▶️ Use transport as a lever for cooler cities and promote green spaces 🚌🌳
▶️ Promote energy-efficient mobility

So it's not that we actively intended to control for the effects of moral emotions. It's something we did implicitly when calculating the direct effect in the mediation model.

The 'direct' effect of appeals (vs. control) on willingness opposes the indirect, positive effect of moral emotions. This direct effect is the effect of appeals on willingness, controlling for the effect of moral emotions.

The final sentence is an interpretation, not based on direct measurement.

The 'direct' effect of the appeals (vs. control) on willingness opposed the indirect, positive effect of moral emotions. This direct effect is the effect of the appeals, controlling for the moral emotion effects. Meat-eating justifications may explain some of this counter-active effect, but not all.

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👉 In sum, we find that an image of a pig being stunned (vs. a pork chop) sparks moral emotions that discourage pork chop consumption, while a taste for meat motivates resistance.

🌱 For lasting change, we need to rethink how we relate to animals and food & celebrate delicious plant-based options.

Our findings also align with the push-pull model of moralization (see Figure 👇):
🔗 www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Animal cruelty can “push” people to avoid meat by triggering emotions like empathy and anger, while the “pull” of meat’s taste can spark reactance and counter-justification.

Our findings align with research on the meat paradox 🥩🤔—the tension between loving animals and loving meat (see 🧵).

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Two variables we measured offer additional insight:

🐷🦝💗 Caring about animals ("animal solidarity") predicts moral emotions and (to a lesser extent) willingness to change.

🥩🥓❤️ Loving meat ("hedonic motivation") negatively predicts willingness to change and (to a lesser extent) moral emotions.

When we controlled for moral emotions, the animal appeals (vs. control) seemed to *increase* pork-eating justification and *decrease* willingness to change pork consumption, resulting in overall minor changes in these outcome variables.

It's as if moral emotions are, to some extent, ignored.

🤐 These emotions discouraged pork consumption, probably because these emotions, and in particular feelings like empathy/pity and anger/disgust, reduce the need to justify eating pork.

But there’s a twist...

😠 The image showing animal cruelty (the pig being stunned) stirred the strongest emotional reactions, with more empathy and guilt, but also more anger and disgust being expressed when thinking about people involved in making pork chops (perpetrator-oriented emotions).