Changing attitudes towards healthy food via self-association or nutritional information: What works best?

Abstract

Individual attitudes, both implicit and explicit, have been identified as one of the multiple drivers of consumer behaviors, including food-related ones. Building on such evidence, in this contribution we seek at increasing implicit and explicit consumer attitudes towards a healthy food, comparing the effectiveness of two different treatments. The former is based on a self-association task, that aims at inducing changes in the evaluation of an object thanks to its positive association with the self. The latter is based on information provision. We test if attitude formation can be moderated by the individual level of nutritional knowledge and health-concern. Additionally, we explored whether the study conditions applied could ultimately affect consumers' preferences for specific product attributes using a Discrete Choice Experiment. The main findings provide insights for future policy strategies aimed at promoting more healthful food consumption. Indeed, the self-association increased implicit attitudes and consumer preferences' towards healthy food, whereas information, that represents the main target of food policy interventions, seems to have no impact on individual attitudes and choice behaviors.

Keywords: Consumer attitudes; Consumer behavior; Healthy food choice; Information processing; Policy strategy; Self-association.