To eat or not to eat meat - The role of social influence, identity and social network on individual's dietary choice

该项目将调查社会互动、身份和网络对人们吃肉行为的作用。现在有一个广泛的共识，即过量的肉类消费与增加的健康风险和环境破坏有关。最近，我们观察到越来越多的人决定减少肉类消费或完全停止吃肉。这一趋势在年轻人中尤其强烈，社交媒体可能会对他们产生很大影响。该项目将调查社会影响力和社会网络如何影响人们吃肉或不吃肉的决定。社会影响可以通过现实生活网络（如家庭或工作网络）以及虚拟社交媒体网络来实现。该项目将与素食协会（VegSoc）合作，该协会非常有兴趣了解近年来人们成为素食主义者或纯素食主义者的动机。研究人员将与VegSoc密切合作，以确定影响人们吃肉和不吃肉决定的关键问题，并为未来问卷的设计提供信息。该项目由两个主要部分组成。首先，它将调查现有数据，以解决人们吃肉行为的实证研究问题。其次，本研究将发展一个以代理人为基础的模拟模型，以研究社会影响力和社会网络对素食或纯素饮食的影响。根据第一部分的实证研究结果，基于代理人的模型将用于研究食肉行为如何通过不同的机制（例如同伴压力）在不同人群中传播。该模型亦将用于解释一些观察到的社会现象，例如人口中食肉行为的聚集和两极化，并加深我们对素食在人群中传播的社会动力学的理解。

The project will investigate the role of social interactions, identity and network on people's meat-eating behaviour. There is a wide consensus now that excessive meat consumption is linked to increased health risks and environmental damage. More recently, we observe an increasing trend of people who decide to reduce meat consumption or stop eating meat altogether. The trend is strong especially among young people, on whom social media may have a big influence. The project will investigate how social influence and social network affect people's decision to eat or not eat meat. Social influence can take place both via the real-life network such as family or work network, as well as via the virtual social media network. The project will partner with the Vegetarian Society (VegSoc), which is very interested in learning what existing data tell us about people's motivations to become vegetarians or vegans in recent years. Researchers will work closely with VegSoc to identify the key issues that affect people's decision to eat and not eat meat, and to inform the design of future questionnaires. Support will be in-kind only.The project consists of two main components. First, it will investigate existing data to address empirical research questions on people's meat-eating behaviour. Second, it will develop an agent-based simulation model to study the impact of social influence and social network on the adoption of the vegetarian or vegan diet. Based on empirical findings from the first component, the agent-based model will be used to investigate how meat-eating behaviours can spread among different people groups through different mechanisms such as peer pressure. The model will also be used to explain some observed social phenomenon, such as the clustering and polarisation of meat-eating behaviour in the population, and deepen our understanding of the social dynamics in the spread of vegetarian diet among people.