How Should We Treat Farmed Animals? Adolescents Are More Speciesist Than Adults

Adults engage in psychological processes (including species-based categorisation and post-hoc reasoning) that result in ascribing high moral value to some animals while eating others. Do adolescents engage in similar processes? We compared adolescents’ (n = 89, M age = 13.54) and adults’ (n = 113, M age = 43.73) views on four measurements. Regarding moral judgements, we found that adolescents were (a) more speciesist than adults (i.e., believed moral worth was determined by species membership) and (b) reported that farmed animals ought to be treated less well than adults did. There were (c) no differences in how morally justified adults and adolescents found eating meat. Finally, we found that (d) adolescents were less likely than adults to report that in society, farmed animals are categorised as food rather than pets. Overall, this suggests that adolescents base their view on the treatment an individual deserves more on the species it belongs to than adults do, which may serve as a first attempt to make sense of the differential treatment different animals are subjected to in society.