Understanding consumer attitude toward the name framings of cultured meat: Evidence from China.

The naming and labeling of products can affect consumer attitudes and subsequent behavior, particularly in the case of new food products in the market. The present study explores the effects of name framing on consumer attitudes towards cultured meat (CM), which is currently in the early stages of development. With a sample of 1532 Chinese consumers, we integrated several pathways to explain the name-framing effect by examining three different terms ("cultured," "artificial," and "cell-based") for CM. Results indicate that "cultured meat" and "cell-based meat" are more appealing than "artificial meat." Name framings of CM affect consumers' perception of benefits more than that of risks. Our comprehensive model identified evoked affect (perceived disgust) and naturalness as two crucial predictors of attitudes. These two predictors also act as substantial mediators of perceived benefits, and they activate the mediation of perceived risks (an insignificant mediator in cognitive processing). In addition, perceived naturalness mediates the name-framing effect mainly through perceived disgust. Our findings have implications for future strategies for communicating about novel foods (like CM) to the public.

Impact of food swap recommendations on dietary choices in an online supermarket: A randomized controlled trial.

One novel strategy to shift food choices in digital shopping environments is to automatically recommend healthier alternatives when an unhealthy choice is made. However, this raises the question which alternative products to recommend. This study assesses 1) whether healthier food swap recommendations are effective, even though the unhealthy choice was made in the presence of visible FOP nutrition labels, and 2) how the similarity of the alternatives influences the acceptance of food swap recommendations. Based on a pre-test, similarity of the recommendation was operationalized in terms of animal-based versus plant-based options. A randomized controlled trial (healthy food swap recommendation conditions: none, similar animal-based, dissimilar plant-based, or mixed animal- and plant-based) with 428 Dutch participants was conducted in a simulated online supermarket. Additional healthier food swap recommendations improved the nutritional quality of the final basket compared to only providing Nutri-Score nutrition labels (-1.7 mean FSA score, p < .001, medium Cohen's d = -0.48). Compared to the dissimilar condition, acceptance of an alternative was more likely in the mixed (odds-ratio = 2.78, p = .015) and in the similar condition (odds-ratio = 2.24, p = .048), but the nutritional quality of the final basket did not differ between treatment conditions. Individuals in treatment conditions who did not receive any recommendation (i.e. only made healthy choices) had higher Nutri-Score familiarity and general health interest than individuals who received recommendations. This suggests that for individuals with higher knowledge and motivation FOP nutrition labels were sufficient, whereas for individuals with lower knowledge and motivation additional food swap recommendations can improve dietary choices. Food swap recommendations may act as meaningful reminders by disrupting the automatic choice process and triggering individuals to rethink their (unhealthy) choice.

Can Marketing Increase Willingness to Pay for Welfare-Enhanced Chicken Meat? Evidence from Experimental Auctions.

Consumer concern for animal welfare is currently not fully reflected in the market share of welfare-enhanced meat. A possible solution is developing marketing strategies that emphasize personally relevant benefits such as taste and curiosity, instead of having a sole focus on sustainability-related benefits, since existing research indicates that the former are more appealing to most consumers. This study tests strategies positioning welfare-enhanced meat as personally relevant in a real-life experiment and how consumer attitudes towards eating meat influence reactions to the positioning strategies. The study conducts experimental auctions with 101 Dutch university students, manipulating the positioning strategy and a certified animal welfare label and measuring participants' willingness to pay (WTP) for a lunch meal with chicken meat. Results indicate that all manipulations significantly increase consumer WTP, with higher WTP for certified labels than for the positioning strategy, and the highest WTP for the combination of both elements (without providing evidence for an interaction effect). This implies that companies should combine positioning strategies that emphasize personally relevant benefits with certified labels. Since the effectiveness of such strategies may be limited for consumers with conflicting feelings towards meat, some care should be taken when designing awareness campaigns about the effects of meat consumption.

Dutch Preadolescents' Food Consumption at School: Influence of Autonomy, Competence and Parenting Practices.

Eating habits appear to become less healthy once children move into adolescence. Adolescence is characterized by increasing independence and autonomy. Still, parents continue influencing adolescents' eating habits. This cross-sectional study used a Self-Determination Theory perspective to examine how parents can support preadolescents' food-related autonomy and competence and how these factors are associated with healthy eating motivation and food consumption at school. In addition, the effect of relative healthy food availability at home on preadolescents' food consumption at school was explored. In total, 142 Dutch preadolescents (mean age 12.18) and 81 parents completed questionnaires. The results showed that preadolescents perceived themselves as having higher food-related autonomy and lower competence to eat healthily as compared to their parents' perceptions. A path analysis was conducted to test the hypothesized model. Although parental support was positively associated with food-related autonomy, higher food-related autonomy was related to less healthy food intake at school. On the other hand, competence to eat healthily indirectly affected preadolescents' healthy intake ratio through their healthy eating motivation. Finally, the relative availability of healthy options at home was positively associated with preadolescents' healthy intake ratio outside the home. Findings from the study advance the understanding of individual and environmental factors that influence eating habits during the key life period of early adolescence. The results may inform interventions aiming to guide preadolescents to make healthy food choices on their own.

The effect of a brief mindfulness intervention on perception of bodily signals of satiation and hunger.

An increasing number of studies investigate the effects of mindfulness on food intake and weight outcomes, while the underlying mechanisms by which mindfulness exerts its effects have received less attention. We conducted two pre-registered studies to shed light on the frequently proposed yet largely understudied hypothesis that mindfulness improves awareness of bodily signals of satiation and hunger. We assessed the ability to perceive the onset of bodily signals of satiation with the two-step water load test (Study 1) and the ability to perceive the onset of bodily signals of hunger with the preload test (Study 2). A brief mindfulness exercise (body scan) did not impact the perception of satiation but improved the ability to perceive bodily signals of hunger. After the consumption of a standardized preload, participants in the two experimental conditions felt equally satiated; nevertheless, those in the mindfulness condition perceived the onset of hunger 18min earlier than those in the control condition and this effect persisted also in the presence of control variables. These findings together suggest that even a single and short mindfulness exercise can improve perception of hunger signals substantially, while more intensive mindfulness training may be needed to impact perception of satiation signals.

Participatory Methods in Food Behaviour Research: A Framework Showing Advantages and Disadvantages of Various Methods.

A trend is visible in the food literature showing an increasing number of publications on studies that incorporate some form of participant engagement, such as citizen science and community-based participatory research. This "participation trend" will inevitably affect the scientific field of food behaviour research. This new trend is however not only associated with advantages, and a critical reflection on both the advantages and disadvantages is needed. The current article is a position paper that contributes to the literature in two main ways. First, participation is still in the developmental stage. Many different forms, methods and definitions are used. By providing a structured overview of a variety of participatory methods derived from a focused search of the literature on food behaviour, we aim to clarify the relationships between the various forms of participation methods. Second, the involvement of citizens in research is increasingly calling for novel research methods (e.g., voluntary recruitment and active involvement), which may be accompanied by both advantages and disadvantages. We add to the literature by developing a framework that indicates the advantages and disadvantages of participatory methods in food behaviour research. Our study highlights the relevance of differentiating the goal of the researcher (efficiency versus engagement) and the role of citizens (collecting versus creating), thus implying a trade-off between cost-effectiveness and involvement, as well as between data richness and data quality. Our work is a first effort to create structure and guidance within a new area. Our efforts could be used in future research aimed at developing more extensive protocols and tools for the application of participation in research, thereby offering a controlled manner to ensure that research stays abreast of our changing society.

The Subjective Value of Product Popularity: A Neural Account of How Product Popularity Influences Choice Using a Social and a Quality Focus.

Research on social influences often distinguishes between social and quality incentives to ascribe meaning to the value that popularity conveys. This study examines the neural correlates of those incentives through which popularity influences preferences. This research reports an functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment and a behavioral task in which respondents evaluated popular products with three focus perspectives; unspecified focus, focus on social aspects, and focus on quality. The results show that value derived with a social focus reflects inferences of approval and reward value, and positively affects preferences. Value derived with a quality (versus normal) focus reflects inferences of quality and negatively affects preferences. This study provides evidence of two distinct inferential routes on both a neurological level, represented by different regions in the brain, and a behavioral level. These results provide the first evidence that a single popularity cue can in different ways influence the value derived from product popularity.

Internally regulated eating style: a comprehensive theoretical framework.

Internally regulated eating style, the eating style that is driven by internal bodily sensations of hunger and satiation, is a concept that has received increasing attention in the literature and health practice over the last decades. The various attempts that have been made so far to conceptualise internally regulated eating have taken place independently of one another, and each sheds light on only parts of the total picture of what defines internally regulated eating. This has resulted in a literature that is rather fragmented. More importantly, it is not yet clear which are the characteristics that comprise this eating style. In this paper, we identify and describe the full spectrum of these characteristics, namely, sensitivity to internal hunger and satiation signals, self-efficacy in using internal hunger and satiation signals, self-trusting attitude for the regulation of eating, relaxed relationship with food and tendency to savour the food while eating. With this research, we introduce a common language to the field and we present a new theoretical framework that does justice not just to the full breadth of characteristics that are necessary for the internally regulated eating style but also to the associations between them and the potential mechanisms by which they contribute to this eating style.

Development and validation of the Multidimensional Internally Regulated Eating Scale (MIRES).

In this paper, we describe the systematic development and validation of the Multidimensional Internally Regulated Eating Scale (MIRES), a new self-report instrument that quantifies the individual-difference characteristics that together shape the inclination towards eating in response to internal bodily sensations of hunger and satiation (i.e., internally regulated eating style). MIRES is a 21-item scale consisting of seven subscales, which have high internal consistency and adequate to high two-week temporal stability. The MIRES model, as tested in community samples from the UK and US, had a very good fit to the data both at the level of individual subscales, but also as a higher-order formative model. High and significant correlations with measures of intuitive eating and eating competence lent support to the convergent validity of MIRES, while its incremental validity in relation to these measures was also upheld. MIRES as a formative construct, as well as all individual subscales, correlated negatively with eating disorder symptomatology and weight-related measures (e.g., BMI, weight cycling) and positively with adaptive behavioral and psychological outcomes (e.g., proactive coping, body appreciation, life satisfaction), supporting the criterion validity of the scale. This endeavor has resulted in a reliable and valid instrument to be used for the thorough assessment of the features that synthesize the profile of those who tend to regulate their eating internally.

Pleasure or Health? The Role of Mental Simulation in Desire and Food Choices.

Many times, desire possesses us and impedes us from making healthier food choices. From a grounded cognition perspective, we investigated the role of two types of mental simulation (process and outcome) in desire and food choice to understand the processes that modulate them and find strategies that encourage healthier food choices. In addition to these explicit measures, we used two implicit methods to measure approach-avoidance tendencies and visual attention. Our results showed that imagining the consumption of vice and virtue foods increased desire for the product imagined and seemed to favor the choice of a vice food. However, at an implicit level, the motivation to approach and avoid food products was neutral. Imagining the post-consumption of a vice food decreased desire for the imagined food and although it tempted people at an implicit level, it made people more prone to choose a virtue food. When a vice food was imagined, attentional bias increased for all types of food regardless of the simulation. When a virtue food was imagined, there was no effect on choice, motivation nor attentional bias. In conclusion, simply imagining certain foods is a potential solution for promoting healthier and thoughtful choices.

The Impact of a Gradual Healthier Assortment among Vocational Schools Participating in a School Canteen Programme: Evidence from Sales and Student Survey Data.

Many adolescents have poor eating habits. As a major part of their caloric intake takes place at school, the present study aims to examine the effect of increasing the availability of healthier foods in school canteens on sales, student attitude and self-reported behaviour. A quasi-experimental study was carried out at two vocational schools in the Netherlands over a 10-month period, where the visible share of healthier products was gradually or abruptly increased from 60% to 80%. Outcome measures were sales data for healthier and less healthy foods and drinks in the canteens, as well as surveys. The proportion of healthier products sold increased from 31.1% during the baseline period to 35.9% in the final period. A gradual increase led to higher relative sales of healthier products (40%) than an abrupt change (34.5%). Survey data showed that students' moderate satisfaction remained insensitive to the changes over time. Overall, results suggest that increasing the availability of healthier products in school canteens leads to small positive changes in sales of products, particularly in the product groups beverages and sandwiches. A gradual introduction may ensure that students slowly get used to assortment changes.

The interplay between regulatory focus and temporal distance in the health context.

OBJECTIVES: This study identifies how the interaction between temporal distance, regulatory focus, and framing of health outcomes affects individuals' intention to adopt a personalized nutrition service. DESIGN: A 2 (temporal distance: immediate health outcomes vs. delayed health outcomes) × 2 (regulatory focus: prevention vs. promotion) × 2 (health outcome framing: illness prevention vs. health promotion) full-factorial between-subjects design. METHODS: In two experiments with samples of 236 and 242 students, regulatory focus was manipulated by asking participants to describe which academic outcomes they want to either achieve or prevent and how they aim to do this. Temporal distance and health outcome framing were manipulated by modifying descriptions of personalized nutrition services. To study the process through which temporal distance, regulatory focus, and health outcome framing affect adoption intention, measures of perceived privacy risk and perceived personalization benefit were included as mediators. RESULTS: The interaction between temporal distance and regulatory focus had a significant effect on adoption intention, perceived privacy risk, and perceived personalization benefit. For prevention-focused individuals' adoption intention was higher, perceived personalization benefit was higher, and perceived privacy risk was lower when health outcomes were immediate instead of delayed. These effects were not significant for promotion-focused individuals. Health outcome framing affected the interaction between temporal distance and regulatory focus, but only in Study 1. Only perceived personalization benefit served as a mediator. CONCLUSION: Tailoring temporal distance to individuals' regulatory focus increases adoption intention for personalized nutrition advice. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject? Intention to adopt dietary recommendations results from a cognitive decision-making process. Regulatory focus and temporal distance are relevant for the adoption of dietary recommendations. Temporal distance and regulatory focus are interrelated. What does this study add? The interaction between temporal distance and regulatory focus affects adoption intention. Interaction between temporal distance and regulatory focus moderates the cognitive process that drives adoption.

The effect of a default-based nudge on the choice of whole wheat bread.

Consumer choices are often influenced by the default option presented. This study examines the effect of whole wheat bread as a default option in a sandwich choice situation. Whole wheat bread consists of 100% whole grain and is healthier than other bread types that are commonly consumed, such as brown or white bread. A pilot survey (N = 291) examined the strength of combinations of toppings and bread type as carrier to select stimuli for the main study. In the main experimental study consisting of a two (bread type) by two (topping type) between-subjects design, participants (N = 226) were given a free sandwich at a university stand with either a relatively unhealthy deep-fried snack (croquette) or a healthy topping. About half of the participants were offered a whole wheat bun unless they asked for white bun, and the other half were offered a white bun unless they asked for a whole wheat bun. Regardless of the topping, the results show that when the whole wheat bun was the default option, 108 out of 115 participants (94%) decided to stick with this default option. When the default of bread offered was white, 89 out of 111 participants (80%) similarly chose to stick with this default. Across conditions, participants felt equally free to make a choice. The attractiveness of and willingness to pay for the sandwich were not affected by default type of bread. This study demonstrated a strong default effect of bread type. This clearly shows the benefit of steering consumers towards a healthier bread choice, by offering healthier default bread at various locations such as restaurants, schools and work place canteens.

Changes in the influence of affect and cognition over time on consumer attitude formation toward nanotechnology: A longitudinal survey study.

Insights into how consumer attitudes toward nanotechnology are formed and develop are crucial for understanding and anticipating possible barriers in consumer acceptance of nanotechnology applications. In this study, the influence of affect and cognition on overall opinion is investigated longitudinally for emerging nanotechnologies, and compared with conventional technologies. Overall, in attitude formation toward nanotechnology applications, people rely relatively more on affect than cognition. Over time, reliance on affect decreases whereas reliance on cognition increases for nanotechnology. This suggests that over time nanotechnology applications have become somewhat more integrated within people's already existing knowledge structure. However, for conventional technologies the influence of affect and cognition on overall attitude remains stable over time. The current study shows that it is essential to address both affective and cognitive aspects of public opinion of nanotechnology.

Marketing Animal-Friendly Products: Addressing the Consumer Social Dilemma with Reinforcement Positioning Strategies.

This article presents a conceptual framework that aims to encourage consumer animal-friendly product choice by introducing positioning strategies for animal-friendly products. These strategies reinforce the animal welfare with different types of consumption values and can therefore reduce consumers' social dilemma, which is a major barrier to animal-friendly consumer choices. The article suggests how animal-friendly products can use various types of consumption values (functional, sensory, emotional, social, epistemic and situational) to create an attractive position relative to their competitors. It also explains why some consumer segments, such as those with a specific thinking style, may experience a stronger effect of some strategies, giving directions on how to approach different types of consumers. Finally, building on research asserting that animal welfare is a credence product attribute, the article proposes moderating effects of two factors that help consumers to evaluate the credibility of animal welfare claims, namely corporate social responsibility strategy and the role of stakeholders. Here it concludes that companies selling animal-friendly products need to be aware of the impact of their overall strategy on the effectiveness of positioning strategies for individual products and that, to gain consumer trust, they may need to collaborate with relevant stakeholders, such as media or animal-interest organizations.

Using a Virtual Store As a Research Tool to Investigate Consumer In-store Behavior.

People's responses to products and/or choice environments are crucial to understanding in-store consumer behaviors. Currently, there are various approaches (e.g., surveys or laboratory settings) to study in-store behaviors, but the external validity of these is limited by their poor capability to resemble realistic choice environments. In addition, building a real store to meet experimental conditions while controlling for undesirable effects is costly and highly difficult. A virtual store developed by virtual reality techniques potentially transcends these limitations by offering the simulation of a 3D virtual store environment in a realistic, flexible, and cost-efficient way. In particular, a virtual store interactively allows consumers (participants) to experience and interact with objects in a tightly controlled yet realistic setting. This paper presents the key elements of using a desktop virtual store to study in-store consumer behavior. Descriptions of the protocol steps to: 1) build the experimental store, 2) prepare the data management program, 3) run the virtual store experiment, and 4) organize and export data from the data management program are presented. The virtual store enables participants to navigate through the store, choose a product from alternatives, and select or return products. Moreover, consumer-related shopping behaviors (e.g., shopping time, walking speed, and number and type of products examined and bought) can also be collected. The protocol is illustrated with an example of a store layout experiment showing that shelf length and shelf orientation influence shopping- and movement-related behaviors. This demonstrates that the use of a virtual store facilitates the study of consumer responses. The virtual store can be especially helpful when examining factors that are costly or difficult to change in real life (e.g., overall store layout), products that are not presently available in the market, and routinized behaviors in familiar environments.

Beyond expectations: The responses of the autonomic nervous system to visual food cues.

Self-report measures rely on cognitive and rational processes and may not, therefore, be the most suitable tools to investigate implicit or unconscious factors within a sensory experience. The responses from the autonomic nervous system (ANS), which are not susceptible to bias due to their involuntary nature, may provide a better insight. Expectations are important for the consumer-product interaction and should be considered. However, research using ANS responses has not focused thoroughly on expectations. Our aim was to investigate the mechanisms underlying ANS responses by evaluating the reactions to different images when expectations about a product are created (before tasting the product) and when they are confirmed and disconfirmed (after tasting the product). In a first study, seventy-five participants tasted four drinks (three identical soy-based drinks and one rice-based drink) and were told that they would be shown their main ingredient either before or after tasting. For the three identical drinks, the images shown were: worms, chocolate, and soy. Heart rate and skin conductance were measured during the procedure. The results showed that ANS responses followed similar patterns when images were presented before or after tasting. Heart rate decreased for all images, with the largest decrease found for chocolate and worms. Skin conductance increased, with the largest increase found for worms. To test whether the effects were solely caused by image perception, a second study was done in which forty participants only saw the images. The responses obtained were smaller and did not completely match those of the first study. In conclusion, it could be said that the ANS responses of the first study were a result of the sensory processing and defense mechanisms happening during the creation and (dis)confirmation of expectations. The second study confirmed that visual perception alone could not account for these effects and that it led to smaller changes. Hence, it seems that the context of use influences the patterns and magnitude of ANS responses to food cues.

External cues challenging the internal appetite control system-Overview and practical implications.

Inadequate regulation of food intake plays an important role in the development of overweight and obesity, and is under the influence of both the internal appetite control system and external environmental cues. Especially in environments where food is overly available, external cues seem to override and/or undermine internal signals, which put severe challenges on the accurate regulation of food intake. By structuring these external cues around five different phases in the food consumption process this paper aims to provide an overview of the wide range of external cues that potentially facilitate or hamper internal signals and with that influence food intake. For each of the five phases of the food consumption process, meal initiation, meal planning, consumption phase, end of eating episode and time till next meal, the most relevant internal signals are discussed and it is explained how specific external cues exert their influence.

Explicit and implicit attitude toward an emerging food technology: The case of cultured meat.

Cultured meat is an unfamiliar emerging food technology that could provide a near endless supply of high quality protein with a relatively small ecological footprint. To understand consumer acceptance of cultured meat, this study investigated the influence of information provision on the explicit and implicit attitude toward cultured meat. Three experiments were conducted using a Solomon four-group design to rule out pretest sensitization effects. The first experiment (N = 190) showed that positive or negative information about cultured meat changed the explicit attitude in the direction of the information. This effect was smaller for participants who were more familiar with cultured meat. In the second experiment (N = 194) positive information was provided about solar panels, an attitude object belonging to the same sustainable product category as sustainable food products such as cultured meat. Positive information about solar panels was found to change the explicit attitude in the direction of the information. Using mood induction, the third experiment (N = 192) ruled out the alternative explanation that explicit attitude change in experiment 1 and 2 was caused by content free affect rather than category based inferences. The implicit attitude appeared insensitive to both information or mood state in all three experiments. These findings show that the explicit attitude toward cultured meat can be influenced by information about the sustainability of cultured meat and information about a positively perceived sustainable product. This effect was shown to be content based rather than merely affect based. Content based information in a relevant context could therefore contribute to the commercial success of cultured meat.

Breakfast barriers and opportunities for children living in a Dutch disadvantaged neighbourhood.

The objective of this study was to explore parents', children's, and experts' beliefs and experiences about breakfast motivation, opportunity, and ability and elicit their thoughts on effective interventions to encourage healthy breakfast consumption. The setting was a disadvantaged neighbourhood in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Focus groups with mothers and children and semi-structured individual interviews with experts were conducted. Interview guides were developed based on the motivation, opportunity, and ability consumer psychology model. Thirty-two mothers of primary school children participated in five group discussions, eight focus groups were conducted with 44 children, and nine experts participated in interviews. Data from expert interviews and group discussions were coded and thematically analysed. The following themes emerged from the focus groups: (1) generally high motivation to have breakfast, (2) improved performance at school is key motivator, (3) limited time hinders breakfast, and (4) lack of nutritional knowledge about high quality breakfast. Experts mentioned lack of effort, knowledge, and time; financial constraints; and environmental issues (food availability) as barriers to breakfasting healthily. Several ways to encourage healthy breakfasting habits were identified: (1) involvement of both children and parents, (2) role models inspiring change, and (3) interactive educational approaches. Experts perceived more problems and challenges in achieving healthy breakfast habits than did mothers and children. Lack of opportunity (according to the children and experts) and ability (according to the experts) were identified, although the motivation to eat a healthy breakfast was present. Predominant barriers are lack of time and nutritional knowledge. Overall, findings suggest educational and social marketing approaches as interventions to encourage healthy breakfast consumption.