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1 – 10 of over 8000Hongyan Jiang, Yudi Sun, Chen Li and Mengmeng Xu
With the improvement of consumers' health consciousness, healthy food has attracted great attention in daily consumption. Previous research into the sense of power often…
Abstract
Purpose
With the improvement of consumers' health consciousness, healthy food has attracted great attention in daily consumption. Previous research into the sense of power often distinguishes it into high and low level, ignoring the impact of different construal of power on consumption behaviors. This article divides power into dual construal (responsibility vs opportunity) and aims to examine the differential impacts of the construal of power on healthy food preference.
Design/methodology/approach
Two pretests and three formal experiments were conducted to examine the effect of the construal of power on the consumer's healthy food preference, the mediation of self-discipline perception and the moderation of the relative strength of prevention over promotion focus (i.e. RSPPF).
Findings
Results indicate that individuals who construe power as responsibility (vs opportunity) exhibit higher self-discipline perception, which in turn leads to greater healthy food preference. However, the main effect above can be weakened among the low-power group. Moreover, the above mediating effect of self-discipline perception is stronger for individuals with higher RSPPF.
Originality/value
First, based on the binary-construal perspective, this study refines the classification of high power and introduces it into the antecedent research of healthy food preference. Second, this paper reveals the self-discipline perception as the inner mechanism underlying the effect of the construal of power on healthy food preference, while RSPPF as the boundary condition for this mediating mechanism. Moreover, this research also provides practical implications for healthy food enterprises that the construal of power, self-discipline perception and regulatory focus should be taken into consideration in advertising design and healthy product promotion.
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The purpose of this paper is to see if edutainment containing only healthy food can change children’s preferences and food choices toward healthy eating, especially in overweight…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to see if edutainment containing only healthy food can change children’s preferences and food choices toward healthy eating, especially in overweight or obese children, and if the children’s self-regulation, emotional overeating and parents that use food as a reward would influence those changes. This is important because childhood obesity is one of the biggest public health problems of the 21st century.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted a study in two public schools (total 189 children) with a between-subjects experimental design (control vs experimental group), where children in experimental group watched an episode of Nutri Ventures series without unhealthy foods.
Findings
The results showed no differences in both children’s preferences and children’s food choices between the control and experimental group, with exception of older children, and contrary to our expectations. Older children in the experimental group chose more unhealthy food than children in the control group. The authors also saw differences in food choices between “emotional overeating” groups, where the children in “high” group tended to choose less healthy food items, especially in the experimental group of children. This leads the authors to believe that isolated edutainment may not be enough to change preferences and food choices; instead it might even have an opposite effect.
Originality/value
This study aimed to identify if edutainment containing only healthy food could be more effective in childhood obesity prevention but instead it showed how complex the whole topic can be.
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Hajar Fatemi and Laurette Dube
This paper aims to study the unexplored possibility that priming firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) activity in consumers’ minds may impact consumers’ preference for…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to study the unexplored possibility that priming firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) activity in consumers’ minds may impact consumers’ preference for non-firm related consumption and lifestyle choice options with intertemporal trade-offs.
Design/methodology/approach
Across four experimental studies, the authors looked at the impact of CSR priming on the preference of participants for later larger versus sooner smaller money (Study 1), saving versus spending (Study 2) and healthy versus unhealthy food choices (Studies 3 and 4). These choice options were not related to the focal firm that practiced CSR. The authors measured the changes in participants’ consideration of future consequences (CFC) as a potential mediator for the results.
Findings
The participants in the CSR condition showed a higher CFC and a higher preference for the options with long-term benefits and immediate costs over the ones with long-term costs and immediate benefits, i.e. later larger over sooner smaller money, saving over spending and healthy over unhealthy food. The authors documented a mediation role for CFC.
Research limitations/implications
All the participants in the studies were from the USA. Looking at the cultural differences can enrich the understanding of the impact of CSR on preference for the options with intertemporal trade-offs. Furthermore, this paper builds its theoretical justification based on the assumption of individuals’ acceptance of CSR activities. Nevertheless, consumers may have skepticism about these activities. Future studies may investigate the effect of CSR skepticism of individuals on the proposed effects. Additionally, investigating the moderating roles of individuals’ characteristics like their prosocial concern or their knowledge about choice options might be an avenue for future research.
Practical implications
The findings highlight the benefits of CSR priming on consumers’ welfare and normative behavior. Firms may use the findings to understand and manage the impact of other firms’ CSR communications on the evaluation of their own products.
Originality/value
This research is the first to highlight the impact of CSR priming on consumers’ non-firm-related consumption and lifestyle choices with intertemporal trade-offs. The results showed the positive effect of priming firms’ CSR activities on consumers’ CFC and the mediating role of CFC.
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Selin Ögel Aydın and Metin Argan
Nutritional disorders and unhealthy nutrition, which are recognised as the causes of many widespread health problems (overweight, obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease…
Abstract
Purpose
Nutritional disorders and unhealthy nutrition, which are recognised as the causes of many widespread health problems (overweight, obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, etc.) have emerged as a significant problem that requires resolution. The purpose of this study is to influence dietary preferences and to reduce current health issues by using gamification as a social marketing tool. To this end, the decision-making processes affecting food choices in individuals based on calorific content were evaluated and the effectiveness of gamification in encouraging consumers to make lower-calorie choices was examined.
Design/methodology/approach
An experimental design was used to determine the effect of gamification on the dietary preferences of consumers. An independent factorial design (between groups) in which multiple variables were tested with different subjects was used to test the factors that were thought to affect the food choices made by the participants from gamified and non-gamified menus.
Findings
In Study 1, menus (gamified vs non-gamified) and nutritional consciousness (low vs high) had a significant main effect on the total calorie count of the selected foods. In Study 2, menus (gamified with prices vs non-gamified with prices) had a significant main effect on the total calorie count of the selected foods, while nutritional consciousness (low vs high) did not. A significant interaction was observed between menus and nutritional consciousness.
Practical implications
Gamification can be used as an important publicity tool for promoting public health using different influential factors such as price.
Originality/value
This study shows that people can change their food preferences positively through gamification. It shows further how people tend to evaluate the price of their food rather than the calorie count when making dietary preferences. Gamification can, therefore, be considered a promising social marketing tool for improving public health.
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Juliana Maria Magalhães Christino, Erico Aurelio Abreu Cardozo, Thaís Santos Silva and Caroline Mazzini
This study aims to understand the extent to which packaging influences Brazilian parents' purchasing willingness based on children's food preferences for unhealthy food products.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to understand the extent to which packaging influences Brazilian parents' purchasing willingness based on children's food preferences for unhealthy food products.
Design/methodology/approach
Parents, with children up to 12 years old, answered questions about the positive influence of the packaging on the children, the preferences of the children in their willingness to buy and the propensity to give in to the desires of the children. Data analysis was performed with the statistical software SPSS and Stata used for structural equations modeling.
Findings
The results back the outlined hypotheses and point out that the characteristics of the packaging positively influence children's preferences as well as parents’ who are prone to give in to such influences. In some relationships, there was a minute moderating effect of social desirability and social class.
Research limitations/implications
The research presents as a limitation the nature of the sample, parents, to the extent that the influences of the packages on the children were analyzed from their perspectives.
Practical implications
Findings from the research can be used to think about preventive public policies to protect children as highly vulnerable subjects. Another practical implication is that the same marketing strategies that are used for unhealthy foods can also be used for healthy foods, improving their linkage to the children once there are evidences that packaging can positively influence their preferences.
Originality/value
The originality of this study is to focus on children's food preferences for unhealthy products and in parents with children up to 12 years old, which is not often investigated by researchers.
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This paper aims to examine how, why and when incidental curiosity might have an influence on consumers’ unhealthy eating behaviors in a subsequent, irrelevant context.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine how, why and when incidental curiosity might have an influence on consumers’ unhealthy eating behaviors in a subsequent, irrelevant context.
Design/methodology/approach
Three experiments were conducted. Study 1 tested the basic main effect; Study 2 further tested the proposed process; Study 3 identified an important moderator and offered additional support for the mechanism.
Findings
Study 1 demonstrated the basic main effect that incidental curiosity increases consumers’ preference for unhealthy food. Study 2 replicated the effect in a simulated grocery-shopping task and further provided direct process evidence that a reward-approaching orientation underlies the effect of curiosity on unhealthy food choice. Finally, Study 3 identified information nature as an important moderator of the effect. That is, when people are curious about threatening information, they are likely to adopt an avoidance motivation, which prevents them from seeking any unhealthy food.
Practical implications
On the one hand, consumers could benefit from being educated that incidental exposure to curiosity cues might lead to unhealthy eating behaviors. On the other hand, public policymakers and responsible marketers should be mindful that, though widely used in marketing, the tactics that elicit consumers’ curiosity might sometimes backfire and undermine their healthy food choices.
Originality/value
This research contributes to the curiosity literature by demonstrating that incidental curiosity could have motivational impacts in the non-information domain, such as food choice. It also adds to the food decision literature by documenting incidental curiosity as an important situational factor of consumers’ food decisions.
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Pilar Ester Arroyo, Javier Liñan and Jorge Vera Martínez
When selecting manufactured foods, customers consider several product features. Given the contemporary trends of food consumption, the purpose of this paper is to determine the…
Abstract
Purpose
When selecting manufactured foods, customers consider several product features. Given the contemporary trends of food consumption, the purpose of this paper is to determine the influence that some demographic and psychographic key variables have on the chances of a consumer belonging to a market segment characterised by health-related food preferences.
Design/methodology/approach
The food choice scale is revised to develop a multidimensional measure of the factors underlying consumer food choices. Data of 288 sampled consumers were used to validate the scale and to group consumers into four segments based on the value assigned to several food-product meta-attributes. Depending on these food choice values, the study identified four dissimilar clusters: utilitarian, protecting, toning and highly demanding.
Findings
Consumers use multiple attributes when choosing food products. However, emerging segments tend to prefer health-related attributes over utilitarian or conventional attributes, such as price, flavour or accessibility. The consumers of these segments tend to be older, more health conscious and more prone to psychological health risks.
Originality/value
Demographic and psychographic traits tend to drive trade-offs between health- and non-health-related attributes when considering food products. Several multivariate methodologies were innovatively coupled to characterize consumers based on their healthy food preferences and individual traits.
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Seongseop (Sam) Kim, Ja Young Choe and Aejoo Lee
This paper aims to gain insight into the preferences of US customers regarding Korean food, and to categorize these customers according to the reasons for their preferences.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to gain insight into the preferences of US customers regarding Korean food, and to categorize these customers according to the reasons for their preferences.
Design/methodology/approach
The study was conducted with a sample of customers in Korean restaurants in the USA.
Findings
Cluster 1 was a group whose members were attracted to Korean culture; Cluster 2 was a group whose members were passionate about Korean food; Cluster 3 was a group seeking healthy and exotic food; and Cluster 4 was a low-interest group. Each cluster had a different socio-demographic profile, favored a different Korean menu, identified different success factors for Korean restaurants, described different expectations and experiences of Korean restaurants and had different preferences regarding Korean food services.
Practical implications
Active promotion of Korean food and Korean culture may be appropriate for Cluster 1, while developing a healthy and exotic menu may attract Cluster 3. Maintaining Cluster 2 is deemed important, while a strategic approach is necessary to appeal to Cluster 4.
Originality/value
This study will contribute theoretically and practically to understanding food globalization, ethnic restaurants and segmentation by preference reasons.
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Emily C. Crofton, Anne Markey and Amalia G.M. Scannell
The aim of this paper is to examine consumers' perceptions and expectations towards healthy snacks, with particular emphasis on the cereal snack market, and to explore new areas…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to examine consumers' perceptions and expectations towards healthy snacks, with particular emphasis on the cereal snack market, and to explore new areas of opportunities for healthy snacks by identifying consumer needs and wants.
Design/methodology/approach
Six focus group discussions were conducted to generate attitudinal data across three different adult consumer groups.
Findings
Results revealed that consumers expected a healthy snack to contain low levels of calories, fat, salt and sugar, and to contain high levels of whole‐grain, oats, bran, nuts, seeds, pulses and fruit, e.g. blueberries, cranberries, gogi berries. Additionally, healthy snacks were required to be free from any artificial colours, sweeteners and flavours. Major factors encouraging healthy snack consumption included reduced risk of weight gain, diabetes, heart burn and bloating. Conversely, perceived taste, portion size, the lack of available convenient nutritional snacks, accessibility and confusion over the credibility of the “healthy product” tag were the main factors preventing healthy consumption in the adult population examined. Consumers expressed a desire for a wider choice of filling snacks with specific health benefits for a variety of usage occasions, particularly those with associated health claims such as “high fibre”, “omega 3 for mental health” and “reduces cholesterol”.
Research limitations/implications
The study sample size was not extensive and was limited to a small geographical spread of Dublin and Meath on the East coast of Ireland. A more representative sample of the entire Irish population could be the basis for further research.
Practical implications
These findings increase the understanding of current expectations of the Irish adult consumer regarding healthy snack foods. They also highlight the potential new product development opportunities for snack food manufacturers to explore.
Originality/value
The present paper focuses specifically on healthy snacks and contributes to a limited amount of existing literature by providing consumer research for the development of new healthy snack foods.
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