A Multifaceted Explanation of the Predisposition to Buy Organic Food

Abstract

This study explores whether implicit and explicit attitudes toward organic products explain consumers’ predisposition to buy organic food, considering the hedonic and utilitarian dimensions of attitudes. The data are from an online survey, which included a section on implicit attitudes (measured using an Implicit Association Test) and a section on explicit attitudes. Two products were analyzed using 557 responses from a panel of consumers: chocolate (hedonic-oriented food) and milk (a utilitarian-oriented food). Confirmatory factor analysis and multigroup structural equations were applied to assess the proposed model. Three findings may be highlighted. First, in the model with the lowest entropy, the hedonic and utilitarian dimensions are considered to be independent. Second, different types of attitudes play different roles depending on the product. Finally, implicit attitudes influence the predisposition to buy organic food in the case of pleasure-seeking food but not utilitarian-oriented food. Thus, there is convergence between implicit and explicit attitudes for hedonic-oriented foods and divergence between such attitudes for utilitarian-oriented foods. This study’s value lies in the novel use of implicit attitudes, which have generally been neglected in attitudinal models in the organic food domain.

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“…The propensity to buy could be driven by hedonic or healthiness aspects. Hedonic motives to buy food relate to features, such as taste, pleasure, or the search for experiences [ 26 ]. Healthiness is a less definable concept, but for some people healthy products could be the ones with lower energy density, while unhealthy products can be fast food, pizza, biscuits but also milk [ 21 , 27 , 28 ].…”

“…At the same time, it is theorized that one explanation for our behaviors is to find in implicit and explicit attitudes: the first ones are automatically activated responses to stimuli, while the second ones are rational behaviors formed after a deliberate thinking process. The two attitudes are not exclusive, we probably use both in many situations, leaning toward one or the other depending on the situation [ 26 ] .…”

“…The presence of attitudes that occur at an unconscious level might explain the dissonance between actual behavior (e.g., hedonic choices) and declared attitudes (e.g., healthy eating) in some consumers. Another important point to consider when we think about motives related to hedonism or healthiness, is the distinction between utilitarian and hedonic dimensions according to the nature of the product (or how we perceive it): the utilitarian dimension is probably not significant for products we link with pleasure, but it is significant for utilitarian-oriented foods, as it is described for organic foods [ 26 ]. Implicit attitudes could thus explain the predisposition to buy hedonic foods, and explicit attitudes the one to buy so-called utilitarian foods.…”

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“…The tendency of a person's behavior is influenced by cognitive factors such as personality, opinions, and things that are considered to have value (Djaoued, Mohammed, and Fethi 2018). A person's tendencies can also influence product consumption decisions (Sarabia-Andreu et al 2020). Gódány et al (2021) explained that the factor that motivates a person to become an entrepreneur is the desire to succeed financially and non-financially as a result of stopping work.…”

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“…Although much effort has been taken to understand what drives consumers to act sustainably, the attitudinal and behavioral concepts are still considered to best explain sustainable consumption [3]. Numerous studies report that consumer attitudes to food free of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, hormones, antibiotics, and other toxins (i.e., organic food) can help predict purchase intention and subsequent behavior [4][5][6][7][8]. Favorable contextual factors that strengthen the intention-behavior 2 of 18 relationship are also shown to include the level of control one perceives they have concerning their actions (i.e., perceived behavioral control) [9][10][11].…”