Lifestyle and empathetical values among vegans

Pages: 176-180
Kaivalya B P (Department of Psychology, SDM PG College, Ujire, Dakshina Kannada, Karnataka)
Maheshbabu N (Department of PG Studies and Research in Psychology, SDM PG College, Ujire, Dakshina Kannada, Karnataka)

In India, there are countless different diets, and lifestyles, revolving around food choices. What we choose to eat,
what lifestyle we choose to follow can have a great impact on our physical and mental health, our relationship with
others and the society. Likewise, it also indicates how much we care about fellow non-human animals and how our
lifestyle is affecting them and our surroundings. Veganism is a growing movement which is considered as a crueltyfree
lifestyle, which revolves around the ethics, moral and empathy of humans towards other living beings. The
present study is aimed at studying the Lifestyle and Empathetical values among Vegans. The study is exploratory in
nature and adapts concurrent triangulation mixed research design. The participants of the study include 30
Vegetarians to Vegans and 30 Non-Vegetarians to Vegans. The semi-structured interview was conducted to get a
deeper insight into the Lifestyle and Empathetical values among Vegans, developed by the researcher (2019). The
inductive thematic analysis method was employed to analyse the qualitative data obtained, resulted in the
emergence of various themes underlying meaning among both the samples that were more or similar had a partial
difference as a whole, which were discussed and compared. The main findings indicated that there is a major
increase in the physical and mental health of the participants after becoming Vegans. There exists a sense of
empathetical and moral alignment with their action, and a sense of remorse from past actions.