We have long known that our personality – that is, our typical way of thinking, feeling and acting – influences many aspects of our lifestyle, including the behaviors that affect our health.
We all have “those” friends who are up at the crack of dawn to train for their next triathlon, while our extroverted mates are just getting home from a night of drinking. The former are most likely planning meals and measuring macronutrients, while the latter are chatting with friends over a last-minute cigarette.
These are certainly amusing differences in our attitudes to the world, but also ones with serious implications when you consider that evidence suggests that our very conscientious “triathlon” friends have around 40% lower death rates from all causes compared to our more relaxed pals.
Five factors and food
The Five Factor Model (or OCEAN Model) is probably the most studied personality theory in the field of health research, showing consistent and significant links to many health-related behaviors. This model posits that each of us is a mix of high and low scores on five core personality traits – openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism – and that this mix leads us to behave in predictable ways in the world.
Much has now been written about the connection between the OCEAN model and diet. Personality, particularly higher levels of neuroticism and conscientiousness, are associated with higher BMI and poorer eating habits. It seems that these specific personality traits make us more prone to impulsive eating, as food can be used to assuage negative emotions.
Visionary vegetarians and unfeeling carnivores
But more recently, research has begun to look beyond body weight to other aspects of nutrition, and has found similarly compelling links between OCEAN traits and our tendency toward more sustainable diets.
For example, people with greater open-mindedness tend to eat less red meat – the type of meat that has a worse impact on the environment – while people with greater conscience tend to eat a more sustainable, plant-rich diet.
Conversely, it is the extroverts among us who eat more meat overall, while those who score lower on tolerance – the aforementioned idiots of the world – report more barriers to eating plant-based foods, including a greater preference for meat and lower pro-environmental attitudes. On the other hand, vegans are found to tend to score much higher on tolerance compared to omnivores.
In examining these relationships, researchers have looked at which specific subfacets of these traits explain such differences in diet. They concluded that the intellectually exploratory nature of individuals high in open-mindedness makes them more likely to try new dietary trends, including going vegan or trying new proteins.
Conversely, the higher meat consumption among individuals with lower agreeableness seems to be due to a lower level of compassion, while the agreeableness subfacet “politeness” plays a smaller role in the preference for meat.
Other studies have examined the personality of meat eaters in more detail compared to vegetarians. They found significant correlations with personality traits of the dark triad (Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy) as well as a stronger expression of social dominance orientation, self-centeredness and entitlement.
Appealing to assholes
While these associations may be interesting, the question remains whether they are worth knowing when our personality is a fixed and permanent orientation in the world. If we can’t change who we are, how can we change what we eat?
A clear application of this is how we tailor the way we ‘sell’ plant-based foods to different personality profiles. This would require a more refined approach to market segmentation, profiling individuals based on their OCEAN characteristics rather than just their socio-demographics – an option possible by analyzing their social media footprints or online shopping habits.
Open-minded and conscientious people are obviously the easy prey here, as they are the most receptive to changing their eating habits after reading environmentally friendly or animal welfare-friendly messages.
Extroverted and less sociable people are a tougher nut to crack, but knowing their personality profiles gives us unique and potentially effective points of persuasion.
Important reading on the topic of personality
For example, since extroverts eat more meat at social gatherings or when eating with friends, we could target these occasions and emphasize how meat-free alternatives can be shared and enjoyed with others.
Because people with lower agreeableness scores are also less likely to empathize with others, traditional persuasive messages that emphasize the health or societal benefits of changing one’s diet are unlikely to work. Instead, it may prove more effective to market meat-free diets with clear benefits to the individual, or to otherwise emphasize the decision to change one’s diet as a way to assert personal dominance or affirm one’s identity.
Interestingly, these approaches have already been explored in the context of adapting plant-based promotions to different genders, as differences in acceptance and preference for meat consumption have consistently been observed between men and women.
Clearly, more work is needed to develop and test the precise messages or advertising approaches that most appeal to the different OCEAN profiles. Given the growing body of research showing that our personality influences our eating habits, this is a factor that should be considered more fully as part of our ongoing efforts to promote healthier and more sustainable diets for all.
Or at least the most sympathetic readers will agree.
