Contagion of Inequality: How Perceiving Income Inequality Deters Animal Welfare Consumption

ABSTRACT Despite the increasing availability of animal welfare products (i.e., consumer goods produced with consideration for animal welfare in the supply chain), conventional products still dominate the market. Drawing from system justification theory, which suggests that consumers tend to justify the shortcomings of their society, we show that perceiving income inequality is one of the factors that deter consumers from switching to animal welfare products. Our research reveals consumers' motivation to justify income inequality leads them to accept the idea of more competent groups dominating less competent groups (i.e., social dominance orientation), which, in turn, legitimizes humans' dominion over nonhuman animals. Five experimental studies demonstrate that consumers who encounter high (vs. low) income inequality are less inclined to prefer animal welfare products, and this effect is attributed to an enhanced social dominance orientation. We outline the situations in which this effect is mitigated (i.e., when a meritocratic belief is invalid, and when animals are not viewed as inferior to humans) and discuss how animal welfare products can be promoted amid growing income inequality worldwide.