Documentary as a cognitive intervention
Indeed — to the extent that these films change minds, they do so by bypassing the psychological defenses we use to keep eating animals while still believing we care about them. Understanding the mechanism is half of understanding the impact.
Carnism
Joy, 2010The invisible belief system that conditions us to love some animals and eat others. Naming the system is the first step to dismantling it.
Moral Disengagement
Bandura, 1999The eight cognitive mechanisms — euphemism, advantageous comparison, diffusion of responsibility — that let humans commit harm without self-condemnation.
Identity-Protective Cognition
Kahan, 2017When facts threaten identity, the brain gets better at refuting them, not worse. Why more evidence rarely closes the case.
Speciesism
Ryder, 1970 · Singer, 1975The systematic moral discount applied to non-human animals on the basis of species membership alone. The conceptual ground these films stand on.