​Thus, similar to the results above regarding Animals Solidarity scores and support for AR’s policy goals, willingness to act was negatively affected by nearly all experimental vignettes relative to the control condition. Again, the horse racing campaign was associated with milder negative effects.

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Discussion

Overall, the results suggest that people’s attitudes are negatively affected by exposure to disruptive animal rights protests. Most of the experimental conditions either trended towards or had a significantly negative effect compared to the control condition. This pattern was most pronounced for people’s willingness to act, followed by their support for Animal Rising’s goals. Only when looking at Animal Solidarity scores were there two conditions (horse race disruption with values/norms-led messaging and problem-led messaging) with a significant positive effect.

Animal Rising disrupted the 2023 Grand National horse race, triggering a considerable media reaction and a debate on the use of animals for entertainment. We previously reported on a poll before and after the protest to assess its public opinion impacts. The evidence suggested that people’s attitudes toward animals worsened as a function of how much they had heard about the protest, suggesting that the protest negatively impacted public opinion. Here, we sought to investigate in a controlled experimental setting how different protest campaign types and messaging strategies affect people’s attitudes towards animals, their support for Animal Rising’s goals, and their willingness to take action for animals. We looked specifically at people whose attitudes towards animals are already quite positive (score 5 or higher on the Animal Solidarity scale) but who are neither vegans nor engaged in animal advocacy. These people constitute the primary target group for animal rights groups such as AR, because they are the most likely to develop more pro-animal views and behaviours if nudged in that direction. 

Our results revealed interesting differences between the different campaign types and messaging strategies. Overall, the data suggest that horse racing campaigns have less of a negative effect than KFC blockades and open rescues, and that norms/values-led messaging is more effective than problem-led and solution-led messaging (even though it too was generally associated with negative effects relative to the control condition). Solution-led messaging was associated with the most negative effects across measures. In more detail, the results indicated that regarding Animal Solidarity scores, norms/values-led messaging and the horse race disruption campaign had more positive effects than the other conditions. By contrast, KFC blockades were associated with the lowest Animal Solidarity scores, especially in the context of solution-led messaging. Regarding support for AR’s goals, horse racing campaigns again did relatively better, with open rescue campaigns doing particularly poorly, and solution-led messaging again having the strongest negative impact. Regarding willingness to act, most conditions had robust negative effects relative to the control condition. Again, horse racing campaigns had more positive effects compared to the other campaign types.

What can account for the differences between messages? It is well established that most people are strongly influenced by what others do or think (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004; Miller & Prentice, 2016). This is in part because people’s actions and beliefs are cues to social norms (Asch, 1955). Perceived norms are highly dynamic (Sparkman & Walton, 2017), making them an attractive target for framing effects. Indeed, previous studies suggest that messaging strategies that highlight societal norms can be very effective at inciting pro-environmental behaviour (Cialdini et al., 1990; Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004; Goldstein et al., 2008). Moreover, framing effects can be exploited in order to appeal to people’s core values (Dixon et al., 2017). For instance, climate change deniers can be motivated to engage in pro-environmental behaviour if climate action is framed in terms of the care we feel towards one another or the technological (and other) improvements we can make as a society (Bain et al., 2012). It is likely that the values/norms-led messages had less detrimental effects compared to the other messaging types because they combined the strengths of normative and value-based messaging strategies, thereby offsetting the general negative effect of vignettes about animal rights protest.

What can account for the differences between campaign types? We see two main alternative explanations: 1) In April 2023, Animal Rising disrupted the Grand National horse race and received so much media attention that an estimated 50% of the UK population heard about it. Those participants who were exposed to reporting about the protest have had time to think about the rationale behind it so might better understand what the activists are doing in the vignettes presented here. 2) Alternatively, horse race disruptions might inherently be viewed more favourably compared to open rescues and KFC blockades. This could be because delaying a horse race is seen as less immoral compared to stealing animals from a farm or physically blocking people from getting the dinner they desire. Moreover, polling suggests that people are more willing to give up horse racing than eating meat (which is what the open rescue and KFC campaigns are more overtly targeting). A follow-up analysis indirectly supports the latter explanation: we ran a model that again predicted Animal Solidarity scores with the ten  vignettes and additionally included a factor reflecting people’s awareness of the Grand National horse racing protest and its interaction with the effect of the vignettes. Explanation 1 predicts a positive interaction effect, such that people who have heard more about the Grand National protest would be affected more positively by the horse race disruption conditions. Instead, there was an opposite trend. Our results suggest that horse race disruptions had more positive/less negative effects in all outcome measures we considered, and they indicated that this cannot simply be explained by the fact that similar high-profile protests have occurred this year. Previous experimental work suggests that negative public opinion effects of radical protest are particularly likely if the protests are perceived to be immoral (Feinberg et al., 2020). Open rescues and blockades might be perceived as more immoral and confrontational, as open rescues can be viewed as stealing and KFC drive-thru blockades physically hinder people from obtaining the food they desire. Additionally, horse race disruptions are likely to be perceived as criticisms of the use of animals for entertainment, which people are more ready to give up or change compared to the use of animals for food.

In the present study, as well as in a recent one on Animal Rising’s Grand National protest, we observed negative public opinion impacts immediately following disruptive animal rights protests. The largely negative effects reported here were observed despite the fact that the sample tested in the present study was pre-selected to be relatively favourable towards animals. Our previous nationally representative polling work on the short-term effects of the Grand National protest indicated that the more unfavourable somebody’s attitudes are towards animals, the more negative the effects of disruptive animal rights protests (but see the paragraph below for long-term effects). As such, the current study is likely to underestimate the negative effects on the public at large. In the context of climate protests, such negative effects were not seen in recent studies, with some reporting null effects and others reporting positive impacts (Bugden, 2020; Gonzatti et al., n.d.; Kenward & Brick, 2023). There are several reasons why disruptive protest tactics might have a higher chance of producing negative public opinion effects in the animal advocacy domain, as opposed to the climate movement. First, there is more widespread agreement that climate change is a serious problem and that we need to do something about it. Even though animal farming is directly related to the climate crisis, there generally is relatively low agreement that animal farming needs to change urgently. Relatedly, climate change is a much more salient issue that is being discussed in the media on a daily basis. A recent expert survey suggests that disruption is more likely to have positive effects if the issue has high salience and public support. 

Zooming out, the present results confirm our previous polling results in showing that, in the short term, disruptive animal rights protests may have negative impacts. These extend to people’s attitudes towards animals, their support for changing how we treat animals in society, and their willingness to do something about it. However, we recently published new research which suggests that the initial backlash effects due to disruptive animal rights protests do not last. When doing a six-month follow-up looking at the longer-term effects of AR’s Grand National protest, we saw that people’s knowledge of the protest activities was linked with worsened attitudes towards animals immediately after the protest, but not six months later. Moreover, it is likely that any attitudinal changes due to exposure to an actual real-world protest are generally stronger than those triggered by a short vignette describing a protest. Hence, we view it as likely that the negative effects obtained here do not reflect lasting changes in people’s attitudes, but rather a temporary phenomenon mediated by a strong emotional response to the protests. At present it is not known how long such effects are expected to last. Even though these effects are temporary, we believe that the relative differences between different campaign types and messaging strategies provide important insights into possible consequences of activists’ strategic choices. Additional longitudinal data are needed to determine the extent to which AR’s disruptive tactics contribute to pro-animal shifts in the long run.