One of Many.

A plant-based nutrition is easier sustainable, healthier and more coherent with innate values. Consumption of animal products is a major contributor to climate change – yet meat consumption regarding the whole world is rising. To understand how this pattern can occur, we must take all perspectives into account that we have – political, societal, economic, scientific. Studies in green is focusing on the individual, and thus on such constructs as: motives, attitudes, cognition, emotions, personality, and beliefs, as well as (and especially) their influence on behavior. By concentrating on behavioral patterns, psychological research can increase the impact of animal advocacy, of health-programs regarding (e.g.) meat reduction, or help to raise lasting awareness about the interconnectedness of animal products and climate change.

The Unique Selling Point.

Psychological variables differ a lot from e.g. socio-demographical (although these also need to be considered). The benefit of considering psychological variables lies in their variety and different objectives.
Personality variables like the Big Five are consistent predictors of behavior. So when we know which people, with which traits tend to lean towards animal advocacy, we get a better understanding of which groups to target next and on how to target them. People with higher scores in openness to experience e.g. tend to be more open for animal liberation ideas, and thus are more likely to be vegeterian or vegan. They are also more likely to stay it, because of the consistency with which these traits affect behavior.
Attitudes towards animals on the other hand are far more dependent upon the situation we experience. Some research suggests that the attitudes can be dependent on different ways of identifying with animals, or even by being confronted with death and espescially by thinking about our own. The variety of psychological variables thus enables us to investigate very distinctive questions regaring our relationship to animals.

Sustainable Results

Psychological research has to be empirically sound to get published. Questionnaires and surveys have to be validated – the researchers have to show, that the hypotheses they are postulating have tangible effects in the „real world“. When for example we want to demonstrate ‚criterion validity‘ regarding attitudes to animals, we could collect data about attitudes, find patterns in the data and predict different outcomes. If we hypothesized that the participants‘ willingness to donate money to an animal welfare or liberation organization is influenced by these attitudes, we would have to prove that some attitudes raise this willingness, while others lower it. ‚Proving‘ in this context means a statistical way of showing that the finding isn’t just coincidence.
By following the scientific method, and focusing on statistical evidence, psychological research can make very elaborated propositions regarding the subject at hand. Research results thus offer sustainable guidelines for interventions, outreach, campaigning and organizational alignment. Optimizing these processes by making them more effective, frees up resources for other tasks.

The Objective

Since psychological research offers ways to optimize the effectiveness of the animal liberation endeavors, studies in green is concerned with spreading these results for organizations, but also for individuals who are interested in the growing field of pychology regarding human-animal relationships. As a resource itself, studies in green features the latest articles on the homepage, all articles to browse, and basics, where main concepts are presented and explained.