Perceived Behavioural Control and Animal-Welfare Ethics Predict Cultured-Meat Acceptance in INDIA: An Extended Theory...

Cultured meat is proposed as a sustainable protein alternative, yet consumer acceptance remains one of the principal barriers to its commercialisation, and the evidence base remains overwhelmingly Western. India-the world's most populous nation, characterised by dietary pluralism and the principle of ahimsa-remains understudied. Using a cross-sectional online survey, this study applied an extended Theory of Planned Behaviour to identify psychological predictors of the intention to try cultured meat among English-speaking Indian consumers (N = 255), employing latent-variable structural equation modelling with a robustness check for common-method variance. Perceived behavioural control was the strongest predictor of intention (β = 0.609, p < 0.001), followed by attitude (β = 0.295) and subjective norms (β = 0.263, sensitive to method variance); however, dominance decomposition attributed the largest share of explained variance to subjective norms. Ethical concern for animal welfare was the strongest predictor of attitude (β = 0.487), while disgust was a significant negative predictor (β = -0.272); perceived unnaturalness, health concern, and dietary-group differences were non-significant. The model explained 69.9% of the variance in intention. Acceptance reflected perceived feasibility and ethical concern for animal welfare rather than perceived unnaturalness, diverging from Western evidence and carrying implications for marketing and certification strategies.