Today I read something relevant:
In one of our studies, participants were asked to either consume a piece of beef-jerky or a cashew nut as part of a consumer study. They were then asked to indicate all the animals that they thought were worthy of moral concern. Finally, they were asked look at a picture of a cow and rate its mental capacities.
Participants who ate beef-jerky indicated that they thought fewer animals were worthy of moral concern and rated the cow as having fewer mental capacities, compared to participants who ate a cashew nut.
I don't especially recommend the source article though (due to an unimpressive content-to-word ratio).
For bookwriting - Does anyone have a quick ref for experiments where the subject is forced to hurt someone, and then evaluates that person negatively ("The victim deserved it")? I can't recall the Google keyword; it doesn't show up for "blaming the victim" or "just-world hypothesis".