ABSTRACT
How are (most) people able to both eat animals and claim to love animals? This seeming paradox between harm and care is fundamentally psychological. In understanding the psychology behind this behavior, we can start to understand how it may be challenged and ultimately changed. In this chapter, we start by outlining the meat paradox as a form of cognitive dissonance, before mapping the psychology at the level of animals (eaten), consumers (eaters), and behavior (eating). We then tie these individual processes to a broader social system that serves to benefit the status quo and prevent change in how we treat animals. In the second section, we adopt a broader perspective, examining how these same psychological processes may relate to other forms of exploitation. Importantly, we argue that animal-human exploitation may be psychologically fundamental to other systems of oppression. We ultimately conclude that the psychology of eating animals tells us that hard work will need to be done to pierce the social and personal defenses people have arrayed to avoid feeling bad about their paradoxical treatment of animals. In doing so, we may unexpectedly benefit a wide range of struggles against systems of oppression, making the fight against animal mistreatment a fundamental concern.
