#77 Melanie Joy PhD: Harvard-educated social psychologist, award-winning author, speaker and trainer

Mar 1, 2023

Melanie is the world’s leading expert on the psychology of eating animals, most notable for introducing the concept of 'carnism' to describe the inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes people have towards eating animals.

She's written several award-winning books on the topic and how it impacts relationships between vegans and non-vegans as well as social transformation, including the best-selling Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows, Beyond Beliefs: A Guide to Improving Relationships and Communication for Vegans, Vegetarians, and Meat Eaters and Getting Relationships Right.

Her international organisation, Beyond Carnism, is dedicated to exposing and transforming carnism and is home to the Center for Effective Vegan Advocacy.

In this episode, Viva!'s head of investigations, Lex Rigby, asks Melanie more about her work to create a unified and resilient vegan movement, how we can learn to recognise secondary trauma and what we need to do to improve our communication. Watch the 'Kittengate' video also discussed in this episode here.

Lex is then joined by Faye Lewis, Viva!'s head of communications, to chat about cognitive dissonance, carnism as the 'third entity' in relationships and how to practise integrity in our lives.

If you enjoyed the show, please don't forget to rate, review and subscribe to help new listeners discover us. 

About Our Show

Listen now by clicking the play icon below. We’re also on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and lots of other apps and websites.

Get the latest episode every month, straight to your mobile device or computer. It’s automatic and completely free. Copyright owned by Viva! Bristol 2023. Not for re-use without our written agreement.

All featured music and content used by permission. Produced by Faye Lewis and Lex Rigby for Viva!.

This podcast is sponsored by Viva! partners, Evergreen Insurance Services; an ethical insurance broker making positive changes in the natural world by helping wildlife and nature charities.