The Carnism Inventory: Measuring the ideology of eating animals.

Beliefs surrounding the practice of eating animals are widely held, and have been argued to constitute an ideology named carnism (Joy, 2009). We developed and validated the novel Carnism Inventory to measure two positively related components of carnistic beliefs: carnistic defense and carnistic domination. We anticipated that carnistic defense would legitimate the practice of eating animals, while carnistic domination would support the killing of animals for their meat. The Carnism Inventory showed the hypothesized two-dimensional structure as well as good internal consistencies and stability (N = 302, Study 1). We also demonstrated the convergent and discriminant validity of the Carnism Inventory (N = 781, Study 2a). As expected, carnistic defense predicted meat consumption, while carnistic domination was a significant predictor of having slaughtered an animal (N = 478, Study 2b). Both scales were significantly related to sociopolitical beliefs, including right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation, but only carnistic domination was related to symbolic racism and sexism (N = 373, Study 3). Taken together, our findings highlight the utility of the two-dimensional conceptualization and measurement of carnistic beliefs and offer new insights into one of the most common human behaviors: Eating animals is not only a gustatory behavior, as widely believed, but also an ideological one.

The relationship between educational attainment and relapse among alcohol-dependent men and women: a prospective study.

BACKGROUND: We investigated the relationship between educational attainment and drinking outcomes after discharge from inpatient treatment for alcohol dependence. METHODS: Between 1993 and 1996, we consecutively recruited 41 women and 60 men hospitalized for alcohol dependence and followed them up monthly for 1 year. We conducted structured interviews during hospitalization and at monthly intervals after discharge for 1 year. We examined the relationship between educational attainment before treatment and postdischarge drinking outcomes, including time to relapse. RESULTS: After covariate adjustment, educational level was a significant predictor of drinking outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: Lower levels of educational attainment before entry into treatment predicted shorter times to first drink and relapse in both women and men. The association of educational attainment and treatment outcome for alcohol dependence warrants further investigation.