If You Care About Animals, Stop Talking About Cruelty

Developing a positive vision is key.

Most of animal advocacy focuses on what’s wrong. That’s not unreasonable, given the horrors being inflicted on animals. And, in the short run, shocking scenes often trigger the most attention. But it’s still a mistake.

The first reason is that negative content simply doesn’t persuade, over the long term. People who see cruelty may be horrified, but that horror typically just causes them to pull away from that content. The evidence on spreading so-called complex contagion, i.e., change that is costly (economically or socially or psychologically) for the individuals you are trying to change, generally requires repeated applications of the message. If the content is too focused on cruelty, that repeated application never happens, as people train themselves to look away. Indeed, our experiments performed with mock juries found that showing extreme cruelty often reduced our support rate!

The second reason, however, is that negative content doesn’t inspire the base you already have. This is a problem in a world where word of mouth marketing is the strongest and most authentic mechanism of persuasion. We are flooded with advertising. Every moment of our lives feels like a pitch. Effective persuasion campaigns cut through this flood by getting ordinary people to market for them. People generally don’t trust ads on YouTube, or even the celebrity endorsement of a product. What they do trust is their best friend who raves about a new movie, or a restaurant that simply can’t be missed. And the problem with negative messaging is that it does nothing to build this sort of base. Word of mouth marketing is motivated by the things we love, and not the things we hate. Think the Swifties, the rabid community of Taylor Swift fans. There’s a reason Taylor Swift is among the most popular people in the world.

The importance of positive vision is part of the reason I’ve focused most of my animal advocacy on rescue. Rescue is the animal advocate’s greatest dream. It is the thing that makes our hearts sing. But there are other possibilities for positive messaging: the health benefits of a vegan diet; the sustainable future we can build together; and even the spiritual growth that comes from living with compassion. All of these are positive stories that the movement should be investing more in.

Sadly, we’re seeing much less of this sort of investment. That must change. To truly make a difference, we have to go positive. The only way to fight the darkness, after all, is to bring some light.