>[!abstract] >One question examined in the psychology of eating meat has been termed the meat paradox: "How can individuals care about animals, but also eat them?" Internal dissonance can be created if people's beliefs and emotions about animal treatment do not match their eating behavior, although it may not always be subjectively perceived as a conflict. This apparent conflict associated with a near-universal dietary practice provides a useful case study for investigating the ways people may change their moral thinking to minimize discomfort associated with ethical conflicts. > >The dissonance that arises out of the meat paradox generates a negative interpersonal state, which then motivates an individual to find the means to alleviate it. 2010s studies in this area suggest that people can facilitate their practices of meat-eating by attributing lower intelligence and capacity for suffering to meat animals, by thinking of these animals as more dissimilar to humans, by caring less about animal welfare and social inequality, and by dissociating meat products from the animals they come from ("Psychology of eating meat", 2025). ## References - Psychology of eating meat. (2025, March 24). In *Wikipedia*. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Psychology_of_eating_meat&oldid=1259829320