Print versus online media

A study was done a couple years ago that compared print and virtual advertisements. The researchers showed study participants two ads, one was on screen and the other was printed on paper. They did an MRI on the participants to see how their brains responded to the ads.

The study found that:

• "Physical materials produced more brain responses connected with internal feelings, suggesting greater 'internalization'"
  
• "Physical material involves more emotional processing"
  
• physical presentation of information "may be generating more emotionally vivid
  memories"
  
• "Tangible materials leave a deeper footprint in the brain"
  
• print materials have "a more personal effect, and therefore should aid motivation"
  
• "While in no way denigrating virtual media, which clearly has specific benefits in terms of targeting and interactivity, the study does reveal that there is something special about the physical medium."

This study suggests that print marketing materials can be more effective than virtual ones.

Study link: http://www.millwardbrown.com/Libraries/MB_Case_Studies_Downloads/MillwardBrown_CaseStudy_Neuroscience.sflb.ashx

Animal advocacy is not exactly the same as marketing, but there are similarities. From this study, we can draw the conclusion that the act of physical leafleting is valuable work that likely has serious tangible benefits. Most likely, whenever someone receives a copy of Compassionate Choices from Vegan Outreach, and they look it over, they have an emotional memory with a significant personal effect.

Clearly, virtual media has enormous benefits due to ease of production, lower cost, less waste, interactivity, and more. However, this study shows an enormous benefit to print media as well.

Will the animal (rights) movement ever succeed?

Social justice movements and answering the question, "Will the animal (rights) movement ever succeed?": presentation >>

This comes from the October 2010 animal law conference at Lewis and Clark Law School.

If I could have embeded it, I would have. So just follow the link...

Book Review: Change Of Heart

A couple weeks ago I read Change of Heart: What Psychology Can Teach Us About Social Change, a book by animal advocate Nick Cooney about motivating people to act in ways that benefit animals, other humans, and the planet.



The praise already given to this book describes it accurately:

“If we want to create a more compassionate world, we need to understand what motivates people to make compassionate choices. Change of Heart provides fresh, research based insight into how non-profits and individuals can more effectively create social change through a better understanding of the human mind.” - Gene Baur, Director, Farm Sanctuary

The book is a well-written and well-researched piece that belongs in the animal advocate's canon alongside Striking At The Roots and The Animal Activist's Handbook. The book is packed with scientific evidence that suggests particular strategies are more effective than others at producing societal shifts in regards to animal rights, human rights, and environmentalism.

Here's a snippet from the book to give you a taste of what I mean. This comes from chapter four "Tools of Influence, Part I: Simple Tools":

"Seeing a running meter of something—for example, the cost of a cab ride rising and rising, or calories burning off one by one on a digital counter while we exercise—has more of an impact than simply hearing the final price or number of calories burned. The Wattson, a popular item in the U.K., is a small device that displays in real time the amount of energy being used by a household and how much that energy is costing. Similar devices for sale in the U.S. show the electricity use and cost of individual appliances in real time. Watching the cost rise minute by minute can be a powerful motivator to lower energy consumption; the Wattson’s creators claim the device cuts household energy usage by five to twenty-five percent simply by providing immediate feedback to home-owners."

"Providing positive feedback on behavioral change that’s already taken place can help increase that behavior. For example, signs posted on recycling containers that proudly mentioned how many cans had been collected the previous week increased subsequent recycling totals by sixty-five percent (Larson et al. 1995). In another study, households that were mailed letters about their reduced energy usage and financial savings subsequently decreased usage by another five percent, whereas a control group that didn’t receive a letter actually increased their usage (Seligman and Darley 1977). Similarly, households in one town that got feedback on the number of pounds of materials they were recycling each week subsequently increased the amount of material they recycled by twenty-six percent (DeLeon and Fuqua 1995)."

For animal advocates who promote veganism, a similar concept could be used. For example, Eric Markus talks about "becoming an animal millionaire" wherein he means sparing ONE MILLION animals from lives full of suffering and painful death by becoming a vegan and then helping others become vegan too:

"All you need to do is to get about 500 young people to switch to a vegetarian or vegan diet. Since each 20-year-old will likely eat another 2000 chickens and other farmed animals over the course of his or her life, that works out to about a million animals for every 500 young people who change their diets." - Eric Markus

Ideas like this one will spring into your head as you read Change of Heart. You'll nod in agreement when a passage you read confirms your intuition or your own behavior. You'll cringe at some of the sneaky salesman tricks marketers have used and wonder if there's a more honest use for that information. And you'll wonder how little is really known in the fields of psychology and sociology.

A couple caveats:

Psychological and sociological studies can identify trends among certain personality types or groups of people. For example, older people tend to confuse myths for facts when given a factsheet that identifies myths. Simply repeating myths often can make many people (of all ages) believe the myths are true, even when prefaced with the word "myth" and followed by the conflicting fact labeled "fact." (I learned this from the book.) However, that does not mean that human beings always produce predictible behavior. Human behavior is incredibly complex and difficult to predict or analyze.

Likewise, these studies are not necessarily conclusive. There is room for doubt and room for error. Human beings conducted these studies, afterall, and humans are fallible.

Very few of the studies cited in Change of Heart were conducted for the purpose of learning about effective animal advocacy. Most of the conclusions drawn are based on analogies between other types of advocacy or even from the field of marketing, which means that there's room for error here.

All of the above simply mean that people who are interested in effective animal advocacy ought to spend significantly more time and energy studying how to be effective. There's a lot to be learned in this area and if we're serious, we should take to the task as though we were doctoral candidates in the subject. That is, we should do more research!

If Change of Heart interests you, then you might also consider reading:

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

The Tipping Point

Nudge

How We Decide

Have you read anything good lately?

---
Crossposted at Vegan Soapbox

"Animal Tracker," an AR Data Gaphing Tool

I think I'd forgotten to blog about this when it first came out. I remember staying up late at night trying all the options and being surprised by some of the results, talking to my husband about this or that bit of research data and showing him on the graph how different demographics compared to each other on various animal rights issues.

Well, I've finally remembered to share it here. Mark Middleton at Animal Visuals created a graphing tool for the Humane Research Council. The tool lets you visualize data from HRC's Animal Tracker Survey, which is a survey that measures public opinions about animal issues.

Take a look here: http://www.animalvisuals.org/data/animaltracker/

Is PETA Effective?

PETA is one of the most controversial organizations in existence. People love them, hate them, tolerate them, question them. If nothing else, PETA is effective at getting attention and inspiring debate.

Even in Animal Rights communities, this question comes up over and over again:

“Does PETA help or harm the movement?“

It’s a difficult question to answer since PETA does so much and is involved in all kinds of campaigns. Moreover, few people or organizations take the time to measure efficacy. But one organization, The Humane Research Council, whose website is Humane Spot dot org, compiles and analyzes all kinds of information relating to effective strategies of the animal movement.

In their own words,

The Humane Research Council empowers fellow animal advocates with access to the research, analysis, strategies, and messages that maximize their effectiveness to reduce animal suffering.

When it comes to PETA’s efficacy, The Humane Research Council has some information that can help us answer the question above. There are two studies that indicate PETA is effective, at least in some areas.

Take a look:

1. “The U.S. Pork Checkoff (managed by the National Pork Board) conducted four focus groups of children ages 9 to 14 throughout the United States and surveyed an additional 350 children online. More than half of those surveyed had heard of “animal rights” organizations and almost one fourth of these children reported that these organizations have impacted their meat consumption in some way. There was low awareness of PETA among the children, but it had a high impact on their meat consumption. One-third of respondents had heard of or visited the PETA website, petakids.com; of those who were familiar with PETA, one-third had seen a video about animal care or meat consumption. 53% said the web site/video impacted their meat eating habits.” (source)

2. “[Another] study examined the impact of a graphic animal rights campaign launched by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) against alleged abuses on a corporate farm. It considered the impact of the campaign upon the credibility of the target of the campaign as well as the producer of the campaign.
Results indicated that PETA’s attack message against abuses at corporate pig farms was effective in eroding the credibility of the corporate food-industry raising animals for consumption. At the same time, PETA’s credibility rose overall after participants viewed the PETA attack message.” (source)

(Emphasis added)

Neither of those studies indicates that the other PETA programs are effective. It’s even possible that certain campaigns are counter-productive. But the evidence against PETA – on the basis of ineffectiveness – simply doesn’t exist yet. So be wary of “experts” who claim that PETA “doesn’t work” or is “counter-productive.” They are likely basing their opinions on personal bias rather than actual science.

Related:

• Guide to Analyzing PETA’s Nude Activism
• Regarding the website “PETA Kills Animals”
• Everyone Deserves Mercy
• Not Just Skin Deep
  
• Another PETA Success & Covance Out Of Business

Originally posted at Vegan Soapbox.

nonvegans think differently than vegans

Some vegans watch Earthlings or Meet Your Meat and go vegan overnight, but most vegans went vegan slowly. I've long believed that the path most vegans arrive at veganism - the path that begins with reducing or eliminated consumption of mammals and then extends to birds and then to sea creatures and then extends beyond flesh to milk and eggs - is a path that follows a natural or logical progression of empathy extending out from our own kind to those who are similar to us.

That is, it is common for humans to feel some empathy for cats, dogs, dolphins, horses, rabbits and other mammals like cows and pigs. Some people act on that empathy by eating only certain types of animals that they think of as dissimilar to humans (such as chickens or fishes). Some people act on that empathy by eating only animals who have been treated according to certain "humane" standards. Vegetarians extend the empathy and choose not to eat animal flesh. Vegans extend that empathy to reach all sentient species and refrain from intentional and unnecessary harm to them.

But what gets someone who cares about animal suffering to make the leap into veganism?


A recent study on empathy compared omnivores, vegetarians, and vegans. The study looked at the brains of vegans and nonvegans while showing them images of human and animal suffering. Among other findings, they discovered "a distinctive pattern of empathic response and emotional control in vegans."

"while omnivores are characterized by a greater activation of the bilateral posterior MTG during both human and animal negative valence scenes, vegetarians and vegans have constantly an higher engagement of empathy related areas while observing negative scenes, independently of the species of the individuals involved" [...]

"Collectively, our results reveal that distinct brain responses are evoked by emotionally significant pictures of humans and animals in people with vegetarian and vegan feeding habits, as well as between vegetarians and vegans, suggesting that different motivational factors might underlie their preferences and moral attitudes."

What can a vegan advocate learn from this? The take-away, as I see it, is that nonvegans think differently than vegans. We don't just have different beliefs, habits, education, resources, etc. though we may have those, too; we literally process the knowledge of others' suffering differently. We literally think about animal suffering differently than omnivores.

Hence, if we want to effectively advocate for animals, we can't rely solely on the reasoning that is most compelling to us. Nonvegans don't think like us. So we must include discussions that appeal to nonvegans. We must find ways to encourage animal rights that fit into nonvegans' paradigms.

---
Crossposted at Vegan Soapbox

the one and only true way?

From an article called "Promoting Veganism":

"We don’t have any real data on what works. So I continue with my informal surveying, asking individuals what they were reading or looking at or to whom they were talking at the moment that they began thinking about veganism." [...]

"Until we have that research, we have to be humble enough to know that we’re all stumbling around to some extent. We shouldn’t be dismissive of any (non-offensive) campaign or message or book just because we don’t like the way the message is presented. Nobody knows the one and only true way to promote veganism and animal liberation. And we are likely to end up being surprised by some of the things that work."

Well said!

10 Animal Activist Tips

From The Vegan Dietitian, my thoughts interspersed in italics:

1. Try to understand the public’s current thinking and where it could be encouraged to go tomorrow. Above all, keep in touch with reality. Activists sometimes lose their feel for what the average person in the street might think, and this impacts their ability to know what is possible right now.

I think that's true. But I think a better suggestion is to simply ask people what they think and start from there because it can be insulting to assume someone knows nothing about the issues. If you treat everyone the same and relate to them like they all have the same ideas, it's extremely easy to be insulting or offensive.

I am constantly annoyed by activists who try to have the conversation with me - preaching to choir - without even asking what I think first.

2. Select a target on the basis of vulnerabilities to public opinion, the intensity of suffering, and the opportunities for change.

3. Set goals that are achievable. Bring about meaningful change one step at a time. Raising awareness is not enough. When Henry took on his first campaign, the anti-vivisection movement had no goal other than raising awareness in the hopes that this would bring about total abolition of animal experimentation. Henry noted “I want to abolish the use of animals as much as anybody else, but I say, let’s do what we can do today and then do more tomorrow.” He looked at successes as stepping stones toward bigger targets and more significant victories.

Realistic goals are HUGE! If you try to do too much too soon, you'll burn out.

4. Establish credible sources of information and documentation. Never assume anything.

Credible sources are great, but we all have different ideas of what that means. It's not so simple.
A better idea, IMO, is to stick to one subject at a time. Become an expert on the topic and use all kinds of sources. Be careful about your language and don't claim something as fact if you can't back it up with a source that others would perceive as credible, but don't ignore the effective sources just because some people don't think they're credible. For example, celebrity.

5. Don’t divide the world into saints and sinners. Henry said “People can change. I used to eat animals and I never considered myself a cannibal.”

You can divide between the sin and the sinner.
People are good. Their actions sometimes aren't.

Another similar concept: Be quick to forgive.

6. Seek dialogue and attempt to work together to solve problems. Position issues as problems with solutions. Present realistic alternatives.

Remember that what you see as realistic won't be the same as what they consider realistic.

7. Be ready for confrontation if your target is unresponsive. If accepted channels don’t work, prepare an escalating public awareness campaign to place your adversary on the defensive.

Said another way: Have a plan B.

8. Avoid bureaucracy.

9. Don’t assume that only legislation or legal action can solve the problem.

Laws should work in tandem with other activism.

10. Ask yourself: “Will it work?”

Then be honest. And get input from others.

Encouraging Accomplishments

PETA gets a lot of flack from vegans for handing out awards to people and organizations who haven't done much to help animals.

OK, so someone stopped wearing fur, that's great, but they're still wearing leather. Or a cosmetic company that stopped testing on animals but still contains animal ingredients. Or the restaurant that stops selling foie gras and veal but leaves chicken and steak on the menu. Or how about the fast food chain that adds one vegetarian item to the menu... big whoop!

The baby steps deserve recognition, but an award? Really?

The teeny tiny bits of progress here and there just don't seem worth acknowledging. In truth, I'm insulted whenever a nonvegan brags to me about how they only eat meat six days a week. Sure, meat-reduction is great, but don't tell me all about it, tell your friends who eat meat everyday! They're the ones who need to hear it.

In the past I've tried to ignore all of PETA's awards because of this. Even though I can rationally see these baby steps as progress, emotionally they bring me down. They remind me of how we're only moving inches at a time when we've got miles to go.

But yesterday I read something that helped me understand PETA's awards. It was Nobel Peace Prize myth-busting:

Myth: The prize is awarded to recognize efforts for peace, human rights and democracy only after they have proven successful.

More often, the prize is awarded to encourage those who receive it to see the effort through, sometimes at critical moments.

So, the Nobel Peace Prize, like many of PETA's awards, are not simply for an accomplishment; they're praise to encourage more, similar accomplishments. That puts them in a whole new light, something that's a lot easier to stomach.

(Crossposted at Vegan Soapbox.)

Animal Activism Books

"Here are a dozen titles that have (mostly) been published in the last few years, each one certain to enhance one’s effectiveness when putting compassion into action."

No, silly, not here here. The books are here >>

"behaving respectfully in the face of disrespect"

I found this quote from a new animal advocacy book, Animal Activist’s Handbook by Matt Ball and Bruce Friedrich. The section was quoted by Erik Marcus at vegan.com. Here it is:

"Matt was once tabling in a crowded lobby at a large agricultural university when a dairy farmer stopped by and started yelling. Matt calmly responded to the farmer, catching the attention of a passing Joe Espinosa. Joe listened, was impressed, subsequently joined Vegan Outreach, became a vegetarian then vegan, convinced a number of friends and family to become vegetarian, and has been a leading leafletter and activist for Vegan Outreach ever since."

"Can you imagine if Matt had instead yelled at the dairy farmer and reacted defensively? Perhaps Joe wouldn’t have even stopped. Perhaps he wouldn’t have heard Matt’s argument. As of this writing, Joe’s handed booklets to more than 145,000 individuals. Think about the impact of this one instance of behaving respectfully in the face of disrespect: so many people have learned the truth of modern agribusiness. One instance of respect has made a tremendous difference in the world."

Well, that's great. I'm sure that being polite and calm while tabling is a good idea. Why? Because when you're tabling, you can't just walk away from a hostile dairy farmer. You're basically tied to the table. And then, once you're in a situation where:

• you have to confront this person, and
• this person isn't receptive to your message, and
  
• this person probably isn't in your target audience (remember, the goal is to move the middle, not the extremists), and
  
• you did not set out to confront this person,
  

well then, reacting in a manner that is outwardly calm and polite - for the benefit of passersby and for your own safety - is probably a smart move.

But think about what Ball and Friedrich are really saying here: they're assuming that calmness and politeness represent respect. Calm and polite behavior doesn't necessary represent respect. And respect isn't always best demonstrated by calm politeness. Sometimes strong emotions better represent respect. Sometimes politeness (strict adherence to etiquette) is actually disrespectful. It depends on the culture and on the individual.

They're also presenting a false dichotomy between:
a) calm politeness and
b) defensive rudeness.

There are, of course, shades of gray. There are other options:
c) pure calmness - ignore hostile people,
d) offense (not defense) - witty responses that reframe the conversation and assert control (not defensive reactions that cede power to the hostile person),
e) backhanded politeness - say it with a smile.

(Personally, I usually choose option C. I try to ignore hostile people. I don't always succeed, but I try.)

It's absolutely ludicrous to assume that 'calm and polite dialogue' is always the best, most effective method. There's more than one way to cut open a mango. Likewise, there's more than one way to effectively persuade people to become vegan.

Ask ten vegans how they went vegan and you'll get ten different answers. Some people needed gentle nudging in the form of 'calm and polite dialogue' and others needed a rude wake-up call or reality check. Some came to it on their own and others were influenced by a wide variety of people.

Lastly, it's absurd to give Matt the credit for Joe's hard work. Who's to say Joe wouldn't have created his own, better pamphlet one day and handed out twice as many because it was his own project? Who's to say another passerby, Joselle, wasn't turned away by Matt's response? What if a more aggressive (or rude) approach hadn't worked on Joe, but had worked on the dairy farmer instead, who subsequently turned his farm into a sanctuary?

There are too many what-ifs...? For example, what if...

Marcy was tabling in a crowded lobby at a large agricultural university when a dairy farmer stopped by and started yelling. Marcy responded to the farmer with a funny, yet rude comment, catching the attention of a passing Francis. Francis listened, was impressed, subsequently joined the Rude Vegan Comedy Troupe, became a vegan, then a comedian, convinced a number of friends and family to become vegan, and has been a leading comedian for Rude Vegan Comedy Troupe ever since.

Can you imagine if Marcy had instead been boring and polite? Perhaps Francis wouldn’t have even stopped. Perhaps he wouldn’t have heard Marcy's humorous quips. As of this writing, Francis has handed pamphlets to more than 145,000 individuals. Think about the impact of this one instance of behaving disrespectfully comical in the face of idiocy: so many people have been inspired to go vegan. One instance of rude comedic action has made a tremendous difference in the world.

My point is that anecdotal evidence like the story above with Matt and Joe serve only to reinforce a peacenik reader's worldview. If someone who isn't convinced that politeness is the one-and-only most effective method reads that passage, someone who is more skeptical reads the passage, they might think the book is worthless. Then again, maybe that kind of person isn't the kind of person who wants or needs this book.

However, even all that, I'm still interested in reading the book. Why? Because Matt Ball and Bruce Friedrich are deeply committed animal advocates and they've done a ton of activism. They're bound to have some thoughtful insights and interesting stories.

Readability Results In Rights

The most basic task that the animal advocate must achieve is to be understood. The message should not be lost in big words, confusing symbols, or disorganized ideas. Animal advocates have a responsibility to make their messages clear.

With that in mind, I copied and pasted text from a handful of vegan fliers into a readability tool. The tool determines the amount of education required to understand the literature. It calculates the "Flesch Reading Ease." A score of 90–100 means the literature can be easily understandable by an average 11-year old student, a score between 60–70 can be easily understandable by 13- to 15-year old students, and a score 30 and under means the literature best understood only by college graduates.

Since most of the literature is to be handed out to high school and college students, not college graduates, it makes sense to craft a pamphlet that is easily understood by 13-15 year olds, that is, a pamphlet that has a Flesch Reading Ease score of 60 or higher.

The results of my little experiment? Poor.

I won't name names, but here's an idea:

• An "abolitionist" flier scored a Flesch Reading Ease of 27.46. In comparison, Reader's Digest magazine is about 65, Time magazine scores about 52, and the Harvard Law Review has a general readability score in the low 30s. This one page flier was more difficult to read and understand than the Harvard Law Review. (source)
  
• Another "abolitionist" pamphlet scored 36.36.
• A "what's wrong with dairy" flier received a score of 39.48.
• An animal emancipation style flier scored a respectable 45.79.
• In contrast, a vegan education booklet scored 61.12.
• And a "vegetarian starter kit" returned a result of 64.23.

Why does this happen? I think this happens because many of the people who write these hand-outs are smart, educated people who are very capable of understanding complex language. Many have studied philosophy or law and are very comfortable writing in an academic style. But there may be another explanation.

Regardless, we should all learn from this. We should make sure our fliers can be easily understood by most people. By making our message difficult to understand, we're not only failing the animals, we're also excluding a number of people who might very well have become vegan or vegetarian had they received a more readable pamphlet or had they stumbled across a more readable website.

To improve your writing's readability, try using shorter sentences and smaller words.

(By the way, this blog post received a score of 59.55. Not bad, but plenty of room for improvement.)

Share Their Stories

Two things:



1) By now we all know about foreclosure pets, the animals left behind when a family loses their home. But there's another tragic story behind some dogs' homelessness: suicide. A friend of a friend committed suicide recently. His weimaraner , Smokey, now needs a new home. She is spayed and has up-to-date vaccinations. She's a little older and she's a little overweight. If you or someone you know can adopt her, please comment here and I'll forward the info along. Thank you.

(Image above is NOT Smokey. I don't have a picture of her yet. But this is basically what she looks like. The image is Savannah, a weimaraner whose picture I found on DC Area Weimaraner Rescue.)

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2) The above story, though it doesn't say much about Smokey, relays enough information for most people to feel sympathy for her. Some of those people will go out of their way to help find a home for her. Simply stated, the above TRUE story is an example of "selling compassion."

Nathan Winograd makes the point (in Redemption) that one of the most successful methods of finding homes for homeless animals is to personalize the animals: share their stories. If animal shelters share an animals' story, that animal is more likely to be adopted and thus spared euthanasia.

There's something about us that makes us care more about individuals whom we get to know than about strangers. Sharing an animals' personal story is one way of making that animal less of a stranger and more of a part of the family.

Whether we're trying to get people to care about dogs or care about cows, sharing the animals' story goes a LONG way:

Videos: Powerful Tools

Even the meat industry groups know the truth:

"Video is one of the most powerful tools used by animal rights groups and other activist organizations, according to the Professional Dairy Producers of Wisconsin. Disturbing images, whether legitimate, staged or misleading, evoke strong emotions and are effective in using rare instances of abuse to defame an entire industry."

Quote source: Dairy Herd Management (link)

Critical Examination of Vegan Education Efficacy

Vegan education is an important component of animal advocacy. We KNOW that vegan education helps convince people to respect animals and to go vegan. There are countless tales of vegans who decided to make a change in their consumption practices after viewing Meet Your Meat or after receiving a Why Vegan leaflet.

But when we do vegan education - such as leafletting, sharing videos, holding cooking classes, hosting vegan food fairs and the like - we ought to make sure we're doing the most effective kind of vegan education. We should choose the right words, the right images, the right food items, the right location, the right audience... the right pieces of the puzzle.
We want to make a difference, not just spin our wheels.

With this in mind, I've come up with a few ways to determine the efficacy of vegan education programs. These ideas are by no means the only ways to determine how effective specific vegan education campaigns are. Moreover, I don't want to imply that no one has done this in the past. I simply want to promote effective animal advocacy.

Ideas for how to critically examine the effectiveness of vegan education:

• Conduct marketing surveys asking pamphlet recipients how persuasive the pamphlets are. For example, test out a few different pamphlets and ask people which ones are best.
  
• Perform studies that analyze the behavior of people. For example, before receiving a pamphlet count how many people choose a food item labeled "vegan." After receiving a pamphlet, count how many people choose the vegan item.
• Show various videos that promote the vegan message and take surveys afterwards to see which ones people react to most strongly.
• Survey current vegans to ask what specific triggers inspired them to go vegan.
  

Small Steps Lead To Big Steps

One concept of the step-by-step method of "selling compassion":

"while there is a deep philosophical gulf between animal welfare and animal rights, psychologically and politically there is a continuum. That means on the one hand that it is at least possible, if not probable, that a person develops psychologically from animal use via animal welfare to animal rights. And secondly it proves that it is at least possible – even if we haven’t provided data of its likelihood yet – that a society develops politically from animal usage via animal welfare to animal rights. [...]

"Can animal industries be made to completely disappear by step for step victories, which bring incremental reforms?

"From a purely theoretical point of view, the psychological-political continuity from animal use via animal welfare to animal rights suggests that indeed it is possible. A society without any restrictions on animal use sees non-human animals as commodities for the benefit of humankind without any ethical value. Such a society will not have any empathy and compassion for animals. The historic example of Austria before the first animal laws serves as a good example of such a society.

"Historically, from that starting point, slowly compassion, animal welfare and animal laws developed. At this stage, ethical vegetarianism could get a foothold at the end of the 19th century. Slowly, the first ideas of animal rights developed and from the 1980s onwards, there is a lively and thriving animal rights movement. The ideology of animal rights and the animal rights movement have their psychological and political roots in animal welfare.

"Similarly, the development of single people generally advances from compassion and animal welfare feelings, which might have led to less consumption of animal products (probably rather of the free range variety), to vegetarianism and eventually to the full animal rights vision and veganism. Psychologically, compassion and animal welfare form the basis for animal rights too."

from: Abolitionism versus Reformism

Meet your Meat on the Street

This is a video of animal advocacy/ selling compassion.
They showed PETA's "Meet your Meat" and handed out Vegan Outreach literature.

Meet Your Meat: http://meat.org
Vegan Outreach: http://www.veganoutreach.org

The Power of Compassion

Scene from Death on a Factory Farm:


Evidence that undercover videos about factory farming persuade the public to change their meat-consumption habits and go vegetarian or vegan: The manipulative responses from the meat industry to try to persuade the public in the opposite direction.

The industry acknowledges the power of natural, human empathy for animals evoked through video education. The Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST), recently published a report that stated:

"Public perceptions [...] of welfare issues have the potential to dramatically impact swine production if governments, the swine industry, or consumers react to these issues by outlawing housing systems or by boycotting pork. In determining whether or not the welfare of sows is compromised, individuals and lawmakers may act emotively [...]" [emphasis added]

Although the meat industry admits that factory farming methods are common (see their own video that shows factory farms) they are trying to manipulate their image by distorting the terminology. Here are some examples:

• What normal people call "factory farms," they call "climate controlled buildings," "barns," "indoor facilities," "industrial farm animal production"
• What normal people call "cages" or "crates," they call "individual accommodations," "housing systems"
  
• What normal people call "antibiotics" or "hormones," they call "FDA approved medications"

Photo of sows confined in narrow crates unable to turn around as published, with description "sows resting and eating in individual gestation accommodations," in CAST report.
Image credit: Egebjerg International A/S.

Moreover, the meat industry is stalling.

Factory farms have existed for decades and even though there is clear evidence that factory farms are cruel, dangerous, and destructive:

"[Industrial farm animal production] systems are largely unregulated, and many practices common to this method of production threaten public health, the environment, animal health and well-being, and rural communities. The use of antibiotics in animals without a diagnosed illness, the mismanagement of the large volumes of farm waste, and the treatment of animals in intensive operations are all of deep concern." ~ The Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production "Final Report: Putting Meat on The Table: Industrial Farm Animal Production in America" [emphasis added]

Despite this well-documented research that makes the specific recommendation to change the meat industry by increasing legal restrictions, the meat industry rebels against any such restrictions. For example, the CAST report cited at the beginning of this article states:

"[M]ore large-scale, on-farm, multidisciplinary, scientifically robust research and development is needed before rigid regulations—which would increase production costs [...]" [emphasis added]

The evident stalling and manipulation by the meat industry can easily be interpreted as a declaration that the meat industry cares more about profit than about animal welfare, public health, or environmental damage.

Two Ways To Change

There are two ways to change: quickly or slowly.

This goes for individuals as well as societies.

• Some people go vegan quickly (a few) others do it slowly (the majority).
• Social trends regarding animals tend to change slowly, then there's a tipping point (critical mass) where it changes quickly.
  

Gradual social change regarding animal testing:


Gradual social change regarding fur:


These images are from Gallup polls.
Here is the link: http://www.gallup.com/poll/1681/Moral-Issues.aspx

Power Tools

"One of the most powerful tools animal rights activists have is the video footage shot inside places like poorly run dog kennels, animal testing facilities and factory farms, used as grim evidence of the brutality that can take place."

Source: TIME

TIME is right, video footage changes minds and changes laws.
For example: