Transforming Animal Advocacy From Invisible To Visible

One hard part about farmed animal advocacy is that most people in society never really see farmed animals—especially not the really bad parts of the system, which are carefully and purposefully hidden. People see and use animal products, of course, but most people's minds aren't forced to make the connection.

If something is invisible, we pay less attention to it, according to behavioral science. The saying "out of sight, out of mind" reminded us of this for a long time before the research showed it officially.

If we can go through our whole day and our whole week without being reminded of how bad factory farming is, are we going to feel compelled to take action? Are other people in society going to care, if they're never exposed to anything to make them care?

That's why one of the best methods for getting people talking about something or taking action is to create triggers for the thought or action that are as visible as possible. There are a lot of specific ways to do this. For example, the act of voting is mostly a private behavior that doesn't generate public reminders to vote, which makes voting rather invisible. But once you introduce the "I Voted!" sticker, now you have a public, visible way for folks to see that other people are voting. Each sticker is a nudge, a reminder, a trigger to take a specific action. Each sticker also reinforces voting culture more broadly.

Similarly, you're going to eat more potato chips if there's always a bowl of chips sitting on the counter—"eat me!" they seem to say every single time you walk past. Put the chips in an opaque container tucked away in the back of a cabinet, and your chip consumption goes down. The book on your nightstand will probably get more attention than the book on the bottom of a pile in your closet.

It's almost obvious enough to not need mentioning. But it does need mentioning, because we forget how powerful this notion of visibility / invisibility is in our lives—and the lives of everyone around us.

So what triggers or nudges can you put in your own life?

And what triggers or nudges can you create for other people to get them thinking about ending factory farming? How can we make sure this issue is naturally top of mind in society, and not bottom of the list?

I think there's a lot of great opportunity here for high-impact advocacy, simply by trying to make the invisible visible, and by making the private public.

Just something to chew on.