Reducing the Consumer Attitude–Behaviour Gap in Animal Welfare: The Potential Role of ‘Nudges’

Abstract

Simple SummaryMany members of the public express a desire for farm animals to have a good quality of life. Yet, when it comes to purchasing higher welfare products which would support this, many consumers do not ‘walk their talk’. This paper introduces the concept of ‘nudging’ as a means to help consumers align their actions with their intentions and support their desire to engage in pro-animal welfare behaviours. ‘Nudging’ is a collection of behaviour change tools designed to hint to, or suggest, a choice most closely aligned with an individual’s self-interests or intentions. Their purpose is to simplify the decision-making environment by working in concert with the behavioural flaws known to influence human decision-making. Four specific behavioural ‘nudges’ are outlined: self-nudges, choice architecture, social norms and pre-commitments, along with examples of how they can be applied to animal welfare. Inspired by effective applications of ‘nudging’ to close the consumer attitude–behaviour gap in other relevant domains, this paper seeks to highlight how similar initiatives might be applied to better support higher welfare choices amongst consumers and in turn, enhance the lives of farm animals.AbstractCitizen concern for the welfare of farm animals is well documented. However, there is a notable gap between people saying they want improved farm animal welfare and how they actually behave as a consumer. This is known as the citizen–consumer attitude–behaviour gap. As improvements in farm animal welfare can be affected by market demand, the choices consumers make become important. This paper introduces the concept of ‘nudging’ and discusses how it could be applied to reduce the attitude–behaviour gap amongst consumers. By designing the choice environment to better reflect the behavioural biases known to impact human decision-making, ‘nudge’ tools function to prompt individuals to make choices that are aligned with their stated intentions. Four ‘nudge’ tools: self-nudges, choice architecture, social norms and pre-commitments are discussed. The behavioural rationales for their use are reviewed and examples of how they might be applied to animal welfare provided. Improved farm animal welfare arguably requires improved pro-welfare consumer behaviour. This paper highlights how this might be encouraged by: self-nudging the salience of an ethical self-image; altering the choice architecture to influence decision-making; articulating social norms to impact behaviour; and using pre-commitment devices to overcome self-control issues.

Applying the 3Rs: A Case Study on Evidence and Perceptions Relating to Rat Cage Height in the UK

“…Utilising default options in an animal research laboratory environment might involve providing researchers with already-enriched cages and fixed playpen exercise regimes. Much of the research conducted in the area of behaviour change and animal welfare concerns meat consumption, dietary change and farm animal welfare [44], however there is much potential for the use of behavioural 'nudges' in the field of laboratory animal welfare. Moreover, the Theory of Planned Behaviour Change emerging from psychology [45] states that an individual's behaviour is shaped by their intention.…”

Applying the Behavioural Change Wheel to Encourage Higher Welfare Food Choices

“…The price premium (or higher cost) of higher welfare production is due to the allocation of more space and infrastructure per animal and greater care and stockperson time; production costs that are passed on to the consumer. Recently, Vigors [36], in a review exploring the effect of nudging behaviours to reduce the attitude-behaviour gap for farm animal welfare, noted that the relative price of products, rather than their absolute price influences consumer purchases. So, consumers are affected by how the price of one product compares to the price of another, e.g., the higher price of free-range eggs compared to conventional caged eggs.…”

“…As humans, we are bounded by the limits of our own rationality. This means that our ability to seek out further information in our decision-making is limited by the time afforded to us, and also by our analytic power or ability to process information and choose between options [36,42,43]. Consumers currently face ever-increasing numbers of choices and product differences when selecting animal-based foodstuffs with different labels, such as free-range, cage-free, hormone-free, to name a few [27,44,45,46,47].…”

“…Consumers currently face ever-increasing numbers of choices and product differences when selecting animal-based foodstuffs with different labels, such as free-range, cage-free, hormone-free, to name a few [27,44,45,46,47]. Despite the best intentions of many producers to educate and inform consumers, consumers are often constrained in their ability to use such additional information to help them make higher welfare purchase decisions [36,42,43].…”

“…Social norms represent the implicit or explicit rules and expectations of society. They amount to one’s beliefs about what other people think one should or should not do [36,51]. Social norms have been found to strongly shape meat consumption [51].…”