Meat Free Week: Jan Willem Bolderdijk studies ‘soya saints’

The national Meat Free Week is from 5 to 11 March. Vegetarian food is better for the environment than a meal involving meat, and cycling or walking to school is better than going by car. So why isn’t everyone a vegetarian and why do we still use polluting cars? UG researcher Jan Willem Bolderdijk studies how people make environmental choices.

The psychologist Jan Willem Bolderdijk: ‘People are true herd animals – they want to do what everyone else is doing. It’s no fun if you are the only one with an environmental conscience. Others might even think you are a know-it-all. So we have to ensure that everyone finds environmentally friendly choices normal. But how do we do that? How do we make environmentally-friendly behaviour and vegetarian choices cool?’

Watch the video below about Jan-Willem’s Veni research on ‘goody two-shoes’.

Vegetarian food at the University of Groningen