Yoga, Ahimsa and Consuming Animals: UK Yoga Teachers’ Beliefs about Farmed Animals and Attitudes to Plant-Based Diets

Yoga is a holistic discipline originating in ancient India. Yoga has links with Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism based on a shared philosophical framework of unity with all beings and belief in ahimsa, meaning non-harming. There is debate in the international yoga community about the spiritual, ethical and health-related links between yoga and plant-based diets. This mixed methodology research investigates the beliefs about the moral status of farmed animals and attitudes towards plant-based diets of UK yoga teachers. A sequential mixed-methods design employing a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews is used. This paper focuses on the questionnaire-based phase of the research. Key results are: (i) UK yoga teachers have very progressive beliefs about the moral status of farmed animals; (ii) 29.6% of UK yoga teachers follow a plant-based diet (n = 446), which is 25-fold the proportion in the wider UK population; (iii) 73.9% desire to follow a plant-based diet; (iv) 68.6% regard plant-based diets as best aligned to their yogic practice; and (v) UK yoga teachers with more progressive beliefs about farmed animals and with more self-reported knowledge of agriculture abstain from consuming animal products to a greater extent. The far higher proportions of UK yoga teachers following vegetarian and plant-based diets, relative to the wider population, are likely based on applying yogic teachings such as the principle of ahimsa through abstaining from the consumption of animal products.

Studying the Cognitive Map of the U.S. States

What are the spontaneous stereotypes that U.S. citizens hold about the U.S. states? We complemented insights from theory-driven approaches to this question with insights from a novel data-driven approach. Based on pile sorting and spatial arrangement similarity ratings for the states, we computed two cognitive maps of the states. Based on ratings for the states on ∼20 candidate dimensions, we interpreted the dimensions that spanned the two maps (Studies 1 and 2). Consistent with the agency/socioeconomic success, conservative-progressive beliefs, and communion (ABC) model of spontaneous stereotypes, these dimensions that participants spontaneously used to rate the states’ similarity included prosperity (A) and ideology (B) stereotypes (states seen as more liberal and atheist were seen as more educated and wealthy). Study 3 showed that states seen as more average on A and B were stereotyped as more likable. Additionally, Study 3 showed that interstate similarity in stereotypic ideology and prosperity mattered, as it predicted interstate prejudice.