The science of animal advocacy, Nick Cooney at IARC 2013 Luxembourg

This speech was recorded at the International Animal Rights Conference 2013 in Luxembourg. http://www.ar-conference.com

Should animal advocates use graphic images of animals suffering, or cute pictures of happy animals, in trying to get their message across? What simple techniques make people twice as likely to donate or volunteer their time to help animals? What messages have been shown to be most effective in persuading people to move toward vegan eating?

While we don`t often think of it this way, getting people to make animal-friendly choices is a science. Decades of published research make clear that certain approaches will work better than others, and our assumptions about what works best are often wrong. The hundreds of studies conducted on vegetarian eating also give us unique insight into how we can be more effective at persuading people to stop eating meat.

In this presentation we`ll answer the questions posed above and others like them, and share key lessons from the research that will make our animal advocacy work more effective.