Stop eating meat! Think about those poor...women?

I came across this advert by almost literally googling ‘advert fails’. As you can see, while the above advert is attempting to get its message across via the shock technique, the actual results are much more disturbing and may scare people away more than attract them. Such shock techniques aren’t uncommon for Peta adverts, with many vegans claiming that even they aren’t fans of the techniques that Peta uses in an attempt to turn people vegan. What Peta might benefit from is using some empathy instead.

Toi and Batson (1982) showed that empathy can influence helping behaviour. In their experiment, participants listened to a recording of a student being interviewed. The student explained in the interview that she had been in a car accident and had missed a month of her introductory psychology course, which all of the participants were also taking. The student claimed that she would have to drop the class if she did not manage to find a student to help her catch up.

Participants were either in an ‘observe’ condition, in which they were instructed to objectively listen to the interviewee and just attend to the facts, ignoring how the interviewee thought (low empathy) or an ‘imagine’ condition, in which they were instructed to imagine how the interviewee must have felt, without paying main attention to the details (high empathy).

After listening to the interview, participants received a letter from the student, asking for their help to catch up in class. There were two further conditions; in the ‘easy-escape’ condition, the letter stated that the participant could meet the student wherever and whenever they wished, while in the ‘difficult-escape’ condition, the letter stated that the student would be in the same class next week. Those in the ‘difficult-escape’ condition would therefore see the student in the future no matter what, and would be unable to avoid her. Participants then completed a form indicating whether they would assist the student.

As seen in the table above, it was found that subjects were more likely to help in the difficult to escape condition, regardless of empathy levels, but that this was slightly higher for the imagine (higher empathy group). Furthermore, those in the imagine condition were also more likely to help even in the easy escape condition, suggesting that increased empathy leads to altruistic helping behaviours.

The above research suggests then that Peta may benefit by appealing to the audience’s empathy, rather than trying to shock them into caring. Perhaps they could tell or show a sad story about a cow growing up just to be eaten, or something similar. This way, people would be more likely to pay attention and perhaps relate to the cow, thus understanding more about how veganism can be a good thing, rather than being slapped in the face with a bunch of horrifyingly murdered women.

One more thing; they want us to stop killing animals, so why show humans? This leads to even less empathy, because if anything this makes us think 'oh my god, poor women', not 'the poor cows!'

REFERENCES

Toi, M., & Batson, C. D. (1982). More evidence that empathy is a source of altruistic motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43, 281-292.