Introducing the Meat Consumption and Intention Scale: Psychometric Properties and Convergent Validity

Abstract

As people become increasingly aware of the harmful consequences of excessive meat consumption on the environment and public health, understanding and changing meat consumer behaviour has become an important area of research in many disciplines. Meat consumption, and the intention to change one’s meat consumption, are two variables investigated in a broad range of studies. However, succinct, psychometrically sound measures of self-reported meat consumption and intention are lacking. Utilising two independent Australian samples, the 21-item Meat Consumption and Intention Scale (MCIS) was developed to address this research gap. In study 1, exploratory factor analysis produced an underlying two-factor structure of the MCIS (a Meat Consumption scale, and an Intention to Eat Meat scale). In study 2, confirmatory factor analysis supported the validity of the two-factor structure. Correlation analyses between the two MCIS subscales and eight variables related to meat consumption and intention provided evidence of convergent validity for the MCIS. Overall, results provide preliminary evidence supporting the reliability and validity of the MCIS, which is an efficient measure of meat consumption and intention to eat meat, can be administered on one occasion, and is suitable for use in a broad range of study designs.

Understanding the Meat-Masculinity Link: Traditional and Non-Traditional Masculine Norms Predicting Men’s Meat Consumption.

“…Participants completed the Meat Consumption and Intention Scale, which was developed and psychometrically validated prior to the current analysis (Camilleri et al, 2023). Participants reported their consumption of beef, lamb, poultry, pork, bacon/ham, other processed meats, and sh/seafood in the past two weeks, indicating 1) the number of times they ate each type of meat; 2) the average quantity of each serving for each meat type (very small (less than 10% of a typical meal); small (10-20% of a typical meal); medium (21-30% of a typical meal); large (31-40% of a typical meal; and very large (more than 40% of a typical meal)); and 3) the extent to which they intended to change their consumption of each meat over the next two weeks (-4 = greatly decrease, -2 = somewhat decrease, 0 = not change, 2 = somewhat increase, 4 = greatly increase).…”