Ever since I understand my new roommate, the world has changed.

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The short story

I wake up and stare at the ceiling. It’s another morning where I have trouble getting out of bed. In the bathroom, I hold my face under the tap. The water is cool and refreshing. I look in the mirror and think about everything that needs to be done today: first breakfast, then a trip to the doctor with Bruno before work, because he’s afraid of the appointment. In the evening, I’ll go to the gym. When I come into the kitchen, Bruno is already awake. “How did you sleep?” he asks. I just grunt a short answer and head for the coffee machine. As always, our mornings are quiet. I just don’t like to talk after getting up.

Bruno is already at the table. Since we bought a low dining table, the living room looks different. We’ve changed a lot of the furniture since Bruno moved in. That way, we can both reach everything. At first, I found it uncomfortable, but I’ve gotten used to it. I start setting the table: two bowls of cereal, a carton of oat milk, fresh berries, a spoon. Finally, there’s coffee. We eat. I’ve also gotten used to Bruno’s smacking. The biggest change for me was probably that we eat cereal in the morning. I used to eat bread, but without cheese and meat, I don’t like it as much anymore.

Bruno finishes the meal before me. I take my time. Bruno calls out, “When are you coming? We’re going to be late.” I get up and we leave. On the way to the subway, it starts to rain. I open my umbrella. Bruno doesn’t mind the rain; he really enjoys this feeling of being connected to nature. In the past, he could hardly go outside. In the subway station, I close my umbrella again and we wait. The subway is packed, as always, when it arrives. In the crowd, I get hit in the knee area and hear a short “excuse me.” But I can’t see who bumped into me. Was it the dog down there?

After five stops, we escape the subway. From here, it’s only a few meters to the doctor’s office. Bruno is reluctant to go in. He really hates doctor’s appointments. They remind him of the past, when the doctor, who visited him and his siblings, didn’t pay any attention to them. Fortunately, the practice here looks inviting. It is bright and the plants brighten up the room. The friendly receptionist greets us by name, so Bruno dares to come in. The waiting room is full and in the babble of voices I hear different languages that I don’t understand. After a while, we are finally allowed into the treatment room. The doctor enters the room, greets us warmly, and addresses Bruno directly to ask him why he has come. Bruno says, “My left rear leg hurts. I twisted my ankle on the stairs.” After examining Bruno, the doctor diagnoses a sprained ligament; with a little rest, it will heal on its own.

Then she looks at me and asks if I remember how it used to be when treatments at the vet were much more difficult. Of course I did. It’s hard to believe that we humans didn’t realize back then what animals feel and what abilities they have. Fortunately, modern technology eventually made it possible to decipher animal languages. However, before I can answer, Bruno says, “I certainly do. I felt that my needs were never taken into account. I’m really glad that my voice is finally being heard.” I can’t really add much to that. So I just nod in agreement and we set off: Bruno to his work and I to mine.

This story was originally written in German and then translated into English by the author. It was written without the help of AI.

The paper

Bastian, B., Loughnan, S., Haslam, N., & Radke, H. R. M. (2012). Don’t mind meat? The denial of mind to animals used for human consumption. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38(2), 247–256. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167211424291

Connection between story and paper

People care about animal welfare, but at the same time, many of them eat meat. In psychology, this contradiction is referred to as the “meat paradox” (Loughnan et al., 2010). When people become aware of the meat paradox, it can trigger a mental conflict called cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957). Dissonance is unpleasant for many people, so they try to resolve the conflict. To do this, they can either give up meat or use other coping strategies that allow them to deal with the conflict in different ways (Bastian & Loughnan, 2017). However, behavior change is difficult, so they often resort to the latter. One coping strategy is to deny that so-called farm animals have the ability to suffer. For example, Bastian and colleagues (2012) asked participants, what abilities they would attribute to different animals that were considered either edible or inedible. Their studies show that they attribute fewer mental abilities to both known and “invented” species when they consider them edible. People who rated the abilities of animals lower also reported fewer moral concerns and negative feelings about eating animals. These studies have recently been replicated (that means other researchers found the same results in an independent study) and can therefore be considered robust (Jacobs et al., 2024).

The short story makes it clear that this way of dealing with dissonance would be almost impossible if humans could truly understand animals. It would reveal the extent of their suffering in factory farms and circuses, for example. Despite initial projects to decipher animal language (such as the Earth Species Project), it seems that there is still a long way to go before humans can communicate directly with animals through language. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile to empathize more with animals. Most people currently have little contact with so-called farm animals, as animals are raised and slaughtered far away from humans. Given these circumstances, it is hardly surprising that we humans deny farm animals mental abilities, while treating our pets almost like family members. Just look at this recent story about Veronika, a cow that uses tools!

The author

Benjamin Buttlar is a social psychologist who studies how people make decisions when they sit on the fence and why they sometimes do things that are not necessarily healthy, sustainable, or in line with their moral values.